


P.O. W. M.

by Darksilversilhouette



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence?, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Dissociative Amnesia, Everything Hurts?, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Not Beta Read, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possibly a tragedy if author's track record is to be taken into account, Possibly darker than it looks like, Possibly not what it looks like, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Suicidal Thoughts/Actions, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2020-03-05 19:46:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 46,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18835534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darksilversilhouette/pseuds/Darksilversilhouette
Summary: A chain of catastrophic events leaves a portion of the population rejoicing over what would have been otherwise impossible, while bringing others a world of hurt. In this new era, while some believe it to be a step toward the right direction, towardbetterment, there are still many who reap nothing but nightmares and sorrow.For some, it might be of their own making... For others, nothing they could've done within their power could've changed the hand they'd been dealt. In the midst of it all, everyone tries to live, to adapt, to make it work one way or another...but what happens if the cost of doing so is sending the world hurtling toward destruction?After all, monsters can dream either of annihilation or world domination...





	1. Chapter One

Sapphire…

All around, with no end in sight, as far as eyes could see… If he gazed at it long enough, he was sure he could see the domed shape of it, the way it curved at impossible heights overhead, like a tapestry stretched over a bubble…flawless, until…

The blinding rays of sol had him squinting and tearing his gaze away; struck with a wave of nausea, he looked away and stumbled, the jarring movement doing no good for his biliousness-coupled vertigo.

Halfway to the ground, and weak limbs stretched to break his fall, but he somehow righted himself; straightened to his full height, as much as he could when it felt like _they_ had poured liquid fire down his throat and left it to smolder in his midriff.

Wavering, a watercolor landscape spread in front and all around him. Blurred, it was as if the ether itself had become translucent in the oppressive heat. Up there, effulging from its lofty heavenward perch, the bright, gaseous sphere that usually brought forth life was scorching everything and anything mercilessly.

_Mercy._

A sneer pulled on his chapped lips…broke the skin, and the coppery tang of it on his tongue, as welcome as it was, forced him to swallow when nothing but his own bile rose up the back of his throat. With a thousand-mile stare focused at some point ahead, he dragged one leaden foot forward, then the other one… and again another.

It was enough to have his breaths echoing in his own ears…

A small voice whispered somewhere faraway that there were so many wrong facets about his condition but it was drowned swiftly in the numb haze that was clouding his head. If he wanted to focus on anything, it was the sensation of being singed, of epidermis blistering, of the rough texture of his tongue sticking against the palate. Somehow, it was all far-removed, like there was something blocking the neurons from lighting his brain with wave after wave after wave of pain… Or maybe, his mind was already enmired in so much of it that no more of it registered.

Torrefied grains of dust and dirt…parched, cracked earth gave way to aureolin dunes, and the contrast of them demarcated against the lapis lazuli of the welkin was too harsh for his eyes; _ugly,_ and he reprimanded himself for it mentally even as his leg sunk in the soft slope of a sandhill. It was easy to give in to the tug of gravity, easy to fall face-first into the blazing, fine particles…but there was a sense of purpose-...

_No._

…-if not purpose then an inexorable forward pull to keep going-...

_Where? Why?_

He didn’t know.

And yet, he willed a limb, heavy with sand drenching his slacks, up and forward, one step at a time. Heaving a physicality brought to _ruin_ across the now-meaningless chronology of _time_ , across a limitless wasteland-...

_How? What?_

A phrase, carried toward his auditory senses and then away by the unforgiving swinge of the arid wind…A distantly familiar voice, of credulous notions and-...

...-of _an effortlessly mesmerizing smile._

Surely, it had to be a vision out of his wildest dreams. It gave him pause, had him narrowing his eyes but it didn’t help against the waves of heat wafting off the sea of sands. His overloud breaths settled into a new rhythm as he stared, stupefied and yet sobered up somehow at once. Ruling out the concept of a mirage, he was somewhat surprised at being able to think rationally...but how much of his rationale was left if he was hallucinating.

_But was it? A hallucination?_

The gravitational pull, the motivation, the drive to go forward, to not halt, to not give in…to never give in… His very raison d’être…

Renewed vigor surged in his veins. His trance broken as he resumed dragging himself ahead, slow going as it was, with the golden specks of dust weighing down his every step…with chartreuse rays making his blood boil and his mind evaporate… With feverish eyes he pursued it; even though it seemed forever out of reach. Even though it wasn’t going anywhere and yet, with every step he took, the distance yawned tenfold…

Sable, silver, and a jet-black wing…

Impossibly emerald irises…and pale cerise lips curved into _a soft, breathtaking smile._

* * *

He woke up with a jolt; immediately overwhelmed by disorientation, seized by a muted sensation of terror because he couldn’t recall ending up where he was.

Staring at the white-washed ceiling as though it could provide him answers, he deliberated that this was something he wanted to process slowly. But rumination was one thing, following through said rumination was another. Not in the sense that he was reluctant, more in the sense that just as much as the moon could stop itself from illuminating the metropolis expanding below, so could he prevent the onslaught of sensory information.

The touch of satin sheets against his fingertips, the comfortable dip of the mattress under his weight…It was familiar, and yet, so distant from his recollections. There was no one else inside the apartment, that he could tell for certain; and not just because there were no other sounds except for his inhalations and exhalations and the low thrum of his own heart. There was a barren feel to it, the sensation of being deserted, of being forsaken and yet...not quite forgotten. The verity of it was not at all dissimilar to a tick burying itself under his cognizance, one he didn’t want to itch, one he didn’t want out; because it made him question, it made him ponder _why? What? Where?_

The windows were shuttered, making it impossible to discern anything about the weather or the hour apart from it being nighttime. His answer however, came to him soon enough as he hesitantly turned to his side…came face to face with an alarm clock with pale, electric-blue digits and an empty bed.

The sheets were apparently a steel-grey color…matching that of the pillow beside his head.

He wasn’t as cautious with pressing his hand against it, but maybe he should have been because something tugged inside him then. With his fingers slightly digging in the sheets, with the soft rasp of them against epidermis, something constricted in his chest, pulled, and it filled him with an ache that made it impossible to stay there any longer. Disentangling himself from the coverlets somehow felt like facing an unseen and unknown enemy; the adrenaline rush dousing him in the onset of a cold sweat that would never come as he made his way toward the nearest door. There was no explanation for how he knew that he had picked the wrong aperture apart from him ending up in the large walk-in closet instead of out into the hallway that he _knew_ was going to be there.

Abruptly, he backed away, slammed into the door behind him really and staggered- _stumbled_ over his own feet before going for the right entrance- _exit?_ -this time.

It didn’t help.

In fact, out in the hallway, it was many uncountable times worse.

He didn’t know which was harder to refute… The unmistakable scent that was forever stippled on his olfactory senses which had now followed him out of the closet, the visual knowledge of what he had seen, or what he was seeing now. Or rather, what he was not seeing with his eyes, but rather reliving with his mind…

Because every surface, every facet of the living quarters before him was etched with memories.

He didn’t know why it felt like the furniture had wronged him somehow, nor could he explain the intuition about the apartment having been forsaken… The only thing he _knew_ was that he couldn’t afford staying there a moment more.

Another matter unbeknownst to him was how and _why_ he was all geared up, but in the face of his haste it didn’t particularly matter so much as he was distantly grateful for it. Grabbing his jacket armor from the full-length, piano coat rack had him hesitating yet again, however; because there, a pair of helmets were blinking cruelly at him in the dim light that crawled lazily inside the room.

He was out the door the next moment… Or out of the building, or out there speeding on the highways. It all blurred together just as the cityscape zipped by.

It was night indeed, and the welkin, overcast with heavy clouds; but he was heedless to it just as he was heedless to the noise of the patrols tailing him since he’d gone over the speed limit. The irritating sirens were almost inaudible over the rev of the engine, the howl of wind and-...

…-He couldn’t get enough, couldn’t breathe it in enough.

Leaning forward over the gas tank, he was overcome by yet another recollection, and the urge to turn the throttle wasn’t met by any resistance within him. The digits kept flicking on the small screen of the speedometer just as the lights from high-rises flickered across the low windshield; smeared over the sheen of the motorbike and then, they were gone, replaced by another. There was no thrill to it; something was overshadowing his emotions, his rationale, his very existence just as the moon was shrouded overhead. He didn’t know how to free himself from it, didn’t know where he was headed to and why in such a hurry, just that he had to get away, that he had to-

-Concrete roadblocks, _‘Under Construction’_ and _‘Road Closed’_ warning signs-

_-shock, confusion, deliberation-_

-deceleration-

-flying-

-screech of metal against asphalt-

-landing-

_-Agony…_

It cut across his apathetic haze much akin to the flash of lightning that all of a sudden pierced the darkened sky. This, he was accustomed to, was intimate with even… After all, pain had been his fidus achates-when he had none-for a _very long time._ Now at least, he could name those emotions; now, he could remember…

Lying almost spreadeagled where he had fallen, he gazed through the narrow, fractured visor at the gap amongst the thunderheads. Reaching for a lonely star that was silently scintillating at him, another reminiscence flashed in front of his eyes, and his effort proved to be no less futile than… 

He could hear the sirens more clearly now, the muffled thunder of booted feet…and the echo of his own breathing in his ears.

He went for the wrong helmet after all. _Or was it?_

The dream- _or was it a memory?_ -of the wasteland seared through his frontal cortex, and he chased after it like a man starved of air, a man thirsting after water; and even then, it slipped through his fingers like fine specks of sand...faded, just as the flickering starlight was concealed behind the clouds.

It didn’t matter.

 _His_ scent was now intermingled with his ichorous signature. _Fitting_ , he mused, an unseen smile stretching behind his helmet as he welcomed the prospect of his own demise.

A droplet splattered against the cracked glass.

It began to rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The author blames this work entirely on a number of songs they listened to and a hyperactive mind which should be working on the author's thesis but instead procrastinates by coming up with ideas to write. Finished writing this and posting it after pulling an allnighter working on said thesis, so there are bound to be heinous mistakes and typos toward the end. The title of this chapter might be subject to change; the same with summary, because it might be simply awful due to being written on the fly using a really woozy brain. There might be few changes in the story as well in case I found those mistakes when I was actually alive and not half-asleep.
> 
> Hopefully you enjoyed reading this, and stay tuned.


	2. Chapter Two

Music filled their tiny sphere of secluded existence. The artsy rock tune coming out from the old radio cassette player he’d found in the pantry of Rhapsodos mansion was low in volume; but loud enough for them to be beside themselves with giddiness, and absolutely ridiculous as they danced-or tried to dance funkily around the bonfire.

The logs popped every once in a while, sending a trail of fireflies trekking toward the stars where they’d gotten stuck against the indigo tapestry of the sky. The dark-haired teen in front of him pivoted on his heels and flashed him a beaming grin which soon dissolved into heartfelt laughter between the two of them at their sidesplitting behavior.

“It’s high time you opened that.” was the jovial remark to which he raised a comical eyebrow before answering. “I thought you were too much of a wus-”

-it was the stupefied expression and the cold look slithering in sapphire irises that gave him pause before he actually heard it. The rustle of bushes, and Angeal who had frozen midstep mouthed him a _‘Don’t move’_ even as his youthful eyes flitted to all their possessions and their immediate surroundings for anything they could defend themselves with. There was a scurrying noise, more rustling, and it was hard to ignore the too hot, too intense sensation that surged through his veins even as dread tornadoed down his spine.

“ _Gen, Run!_ ” ‘Geal yelled, throwing himself sideways, rolling before getting up on his feet in the corner of his peripheral vision-possibly to get to their best option as a makeshift weapon-but he didn’t heed his best friend’s warning. Turned around and found the Spriggan up in the air, already across the brilliant-hued flames of their bonfire and coming at him. “ _Gen!-_ ”

His best friend’s yell only registered halfway, too late, because the insurge and then the immediate outburst of the spell was so virulent it threw him off balance and left him gasping. The monster, though, was already on the other side of the pit, charred here and there, but thankfully scurrying away. For now.

Turning his head, incredulous azure eyes met terrified sapphire, and for a moment, they both were simply too aghast to move. ‘Geal was still holding onto a sturdy branch in one of his hands and clutching a jagged stone with the other so hard his knuckles were chalky. If he focused too hard, it felt as if the ether itself was rippling from the nervous energy and the anxiety that was wafting off his best friend. But then, something shifted, and the raven-haired teen wasn’t standing there anymore but rushing to his side, his ‘weapons’ cast aside.

“-You okay?”

“-You?”

A calloused yet youthful hand was proffered, which he took, but not to let ‘Geal help raise him to his feet; to pull him into a hug when they were both standing, instead. It was hard not to smile after that, especially when his best friend’s relieved expression and equally smiling eyes were gazing back at him. Hard not to laugh when they stepped back somewhat, looked around them and remembered what they’d been doing. Turning off the cassette player, and settling down on the sleeping bags they had rolled out for the night, he turned to Hewley’s only son with mischief in his eyes.

“You know, that was the worst timing ever.” Rummaging through the nearby satchel, his fingers came into contact with a hard glass surface before they grabbed it, pulled it out and brought it between the two of them. “ _You_ , forever the wuss and the spoilsport, were _actually_ looking forward to opening this.” _This_ being one of the many vintage dumbapple brandies his father had brought home after the successful launch of their alcoholic beverages line. “Why a change of heart?”

The warm hues from the flames threw the profile of his best friend into sharp relief as he stared a moment longer into the fire before turning to regard him with a somewhat tight smile. “No change of heart.”

“ _Whaat?_ ” The expression turned into a sheepish grin at his exclamation, but his dark-haired friend still shook his head, his long curly bangs swaying as he did so. Huffing exasperatedly as he opened the bottle, he took a gulp straight from the neck and savored the taste and the warmth of alcohol slithering down his throat. “This is good, you _have to_ try it.” When his best friend still hesitated to take the proffered brandy from his fingers, the redhead grimaced and tried rearranging his facial features into stoicism. “You’ve got to be too dastardly sir to let this go to waste.” He taunted in a mock-deep voice before continuing normally. “C’mon ‘Geal.” Pushing the bottle into lax digits, he leaned back. “Not gonna keep up this act when we go to Midgar, are you?”

The query hung between them until Angeal finally took a timid sip and grimaced immediately. Letting his companion have his privacy as he got accustomed to the taste, the redhead reflected that if any of their parents found out, they’d probably either fall over from worry or give them a nice, thorough scolding. Not focusing on whose parents were more prone to which behavior, he lay down completely, pillowing his head with his arms as his azure eyes took in the silvery splash of the stars.

“Have you told them about it?” ‘Geal’s question was a bit startling but nothing he hadn’t thought about beforehand.

“Don’t see the point.”

“They were supportive of your idea about dumbapple juice.” Sapphire pools met his, and probably the sight of them gave his best friend a general idea about what his answer was. A roseate shade rose high on pale cheeks and dusted ‘Geal’s left ear as his free hand rose to scratch the back of a noir-wreathed head. “All I’m saying is-”

“It brought them fame and profit. That’s why they cared…that’s all they care about.” Reaching for the bottle, he rose to lean on his forearms as he partook more avidly this time.

“You’re gonna kill yourself.” A kindhearted hand wrenched the brandy away, the negligible clink of glass against something hard- _possibly rocks_ -before the dark-haired teen’s attention was back on him. “First, stealing your father’s cigarettes, and now, this?”

A displeased azure side-eye was his companion’s only answer before the redhead relented, sitting up next to the Hewley’s only son. “Don’t ask questions you know the answers to.” was the cranky reply. “You know we’re different. A bunch of cigarettes or a bottle of brandy’s not gonna kill us.” When ‘Geal’s visage contorted into as close to a pout as it could, he huffed a laugh before continuing. “Nothing that mako can’t heal anyway. And y’know, they say in SOLDIER...there’s curfew, regulations…” Waving nonchalantly with his hand as if it’d elucidate his point, he added. “I don’t think ‘tis a good idea to charge into enemy lines when drunk… ‘s harder to get drunk in the first place with mako, too.”

The quietude that settled over them was broken once in a while with the pop of the firewood. In the background, the acoustic of nature was a soothing melody...the warbling of cicadas in the dense canopy of undergrowth behind them was especially a constant in the summer months, which translated to more or less most of the year.

It was nice to be out here, though; enjoyable like always when he was in the younger teen’s company. They had their differences, either due to their upbringing or perhaps simply because of who they were; but it didn’t take away from how his companion was the only kid he’d actually been able to be real friends with… A friendship that seemed to be thriving with each passing year. The happiness he’d felt when ‘Geal had agreed to his plan for sneaking away for the night to visit their haunt tugged on his lips as he gazed at the full-moon peeking just over the horizon.

The scrape of wood broke him out of his reverie, words of his gratitude just on the tip of his tongue as he watched Angeal stoke the fire with his ‘weapon’ from earlier before rising to his feet in a rustle of clothes. With a pair of binoculars-that had seen better days-in one hand, his best friend climbed the large boulder underneath the pale arch of a Banora White tree before bringing them to his eyes.

“Ever thought what you wanted to be if we didn’t plan on joining SOLDIER?” The younger teen queried quietly, resuming with his stargazing even as he asked. His tilting of his auburn-wreathed head was lost on his dark-haired companion as he tried to get to the bottom of what his best friend was getting at but to no avail. Dusting off his garments, he followed ‘Geal to the feet of the tree and raised his head to peer thoughtfully at the star-studded welkin.

“I sometimes want to be a sailor…sometimes a starman.” Abruptly lowering the binoculars, sapphire eyes focused on him as his best friend continued enthusiastically. “Do you think we’ll ever get to fly?”

The grin that stretched over his lips at that was impossible to resist. Unstoppable feet brought him to where the radio was lying discarded, and pushing the play button, he trod back to where ‘Geal was watching him like he was regretting having him as his friend. Jumping up next to the younger teen, he began dancing before snatching the binoculars away while their previous owner was starting to laugh at his chucklesome yet dorky behavior. “Yes, ‘Geal, I think we have and we will.” Leaping for the nearest branch that could hold under his weight, he dangled from it with one arm while with the other he brought the instrument to his eyes. “Haven’t we fallen out of trees before? Or that time with the tiny waterfall?” Gazing through the lenses for only a moment and no more, he handed the binoculars back only to see his companion give him a hairy look. Another grin broke over his lips but this time, it was somewhat sheepish. “I get it…I do. But Shinra runs the space program ‘n’ almost every seacraft on Gaia… Midgar’s our only chance of getting somewhere, of being _someone._ ” With a sigh, he let go and fell onto his feet before flashing a beaming smile at the contemplative ebon-haired boy. “Don’t beat yourself o’er it. Live in the moment, ‘Geal.”

With that, he went to drag their sleeping bags near the boulder, throwing over his shoulder as he made yet another trek to fetch the radio and the almost empty bottle of dumbapple brandy. “Besides, you get to fly choppers and travel on sea if you become a SOLDIER, too.” Settling back on the ground, he decided that he preferred stargazing with unaided eye as he let azure irises roam across the starlit map of the cosmos.

“I think you’re right.” His best friend said at length. “I think I’ll figure it out when we get there.”

His azure gaze caught his favorite silvery dot, and something shivered within him which he dismissed but not before having to acknowledge it. “Sephiroth.”

“ _Hmm?_ ”

“Do you think he gets to gaze at the stars…optical pollution ‘n’ all?” Another thought occurred to him as he reached toward-pointed at the scintillating gem that had him enthralled. “Where do you think he’s now?”

* * *

Laggardly, he opened his eyes before having to close them again as lurid light flooded his vision. Wincing and blinking sluggishly yet repeatedly, he squinted at his immediate surroundings.

Crystal clear waves lapped languidly at the golden shore, brilliant yet blinding sunlight making the rippling surface glitter while everywhere else was-

_-getting scorched mercilessly-_

_-parched, cracked earth-_

_-white...so much blinding white-_

-Startling somewhat at the image that flashed before his eyes, he found himself leaning against something- _a broad chest, white fabric_ -while strong fingers were carding through his hair. It was familiar, the situation, the nonexistent pattern in which those digits traced his scalp, the scent…

Trying to gather himself so he wouldn’t fall apart proved to be just too taxing. Instead, he took a moment, a minute, maybe hours to let it progress at its own pace; to let it become an all-encompassing thing engulfing him until the hand that had been threading through his tresses stopped its ministrations at how tense he’d become. He wasn’t cognizant of it and yet, the knowledge was there. When the hand fell away and its owner slowly, infinitesimally moved away on the double beach seat, did he finally feel partially numb enough to open his mouth.

But only to close it a moment after, apparently.

It was a familiar feeling, and at the same time, strange to be able to experience it again after so long; the mutual understanding and appreciation for comfortable silence in each other’s company. There was no need for words, not yet at least, and they sat there for who knows how much time. Eventually, he inched closer; and as he leaned back against that broad, muscular chest anew, the hand that circled his shoulders, that settled back again in his hair was just as welcoming as before, just as kindhearted, just as painfully familiar because…

Gazing up through the fringe of coppery tresses, he traced the profile of that familiarly unfamiliar visage with azure irises; that prominent browline with severe eyebrows, an aquiline nose, stern lips, and the strong line of the younger man’s jaw.

…It was Angeal. But it was not.

A distant voice was kicking and screaming within him, noises echoing off the tall, impassive walls that were impeding his emotional faculties, but he couldn’t bring himself to heed it just as he couldn’t bring himself to show anything. For an infinitesimal moment, he contemplated whether he actually wanted to feel something, wanted to let anything pass through, but that vein of rumination immediately turned out to be a dead-end and was therefore cast aside. His lips trembled with words he wanted to utter and yet couldn’t. They cluttered in his throat, growing into a lump and pushing down until gazing at those snow-white strands became just too much...too hard. Sapphire irises turned to regard him then, with that neverending well of compassion within them, and he had to tear his eyes away… _he had to, he had to…_

The fingers resumed their carding as he repeated that mantra in his head while his frantic gaze darted from one point to another. Why he was doing it, he didn’t know; maybe he was looking for something, seeking familiar faces, or perhaps trying to overload his senses. But all he accomplished was coming up with more questions.

A parasol was, thankfully, offering them some shade from the oppressive rays, white with stripes of blue. Angeal was wearing a loose v-neck linen shirt, matching the one he was wearing and… white knee-length shorts, just like his. He was barefooted, though unlike him who was hugging his legs to his chest, his companion had his stretched out...toes wiggling in the soft-

_-aureolin dunes-_

_-blazing, fine particles-_

_-too much sand...too heavy-_

_-too hot...too hot to breathe-_

“-alright, ’s alright.” ‘Geal was shushing him like he was a goddamned child. His breath caught in his throat but came out in a shuddering hiss when the caress of the hand in his hair grew slightly more forceful. “Alright Gen, it’s alright.”

But it wasn’t alright, nothing was alright. Not even the couple who just passed them by, wearing Wutain garbs from head to toe. But he had to believe in his best friend, he had to trust ‘Geal because if he couldn’t trust ‘Geal, he couldn’t trust anyone. Again, someone was kicking and screaming somewhere distant, echoes fading quickly akin to his muted emotions. It felt like pulling out a tooth by himself, but he had to… _he had to, he had to…_

The passage of chronology seemed inconsequential to them both, and while he knew it was for wholly different reasons, he couldn’t complain; didn’t want to, there was no need to.

Eternally patient, ever caring; Angeal didn’t let up his surprisingly soothing ministrations until they were more or less back to where they had started. Assumedly, they had gone on a vacation…Why Costa Del Sol, he didn’t know. Didn’t know whose bright idea it was because as far as he knew, there was no way he’d set his foot in the tourist destination unless someone had agreed beforehand to take on the valiant effort of slathering him in sunscreen. His best friend had the tendency to dance to their tunes every once in a while if he was on a really good mood or feeling on the right side of too indulgent; but even then, this particular duty was something he abstained from…

 _Azure_ irises gazed at the waves further toward the horizon, pellucid shallow waters metamorphosed into the azure- _emerald_ hue of the deeps.

…That only left one person…

“Where is he?” was the quiet query. “Where is Sephiroth?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter posted after pulling an allnighter. I tried to correct as many typos and mistakes as I could and to the extent of my grammatical knowledge, but I apologize if there are any horrible ones I missed.


	3. Chapter Three

His reflection in the mirror didn’t hold water against what he was feeling, or the emotion he thought he was experiencing. He’d come to realize that there was a difference between the two, but he wasn’t any closer to getting to the bottom of which one was right and which one wasn’t. 

It was strange, the echo of him on the other side of the looking glass. It wasn’t cohesive with how he should look like, but then again, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Sometimes, when the astonishment of seeing the same visage again and again hit him hardest, he’d raise tentative fingers to his own face, watch his double do the same, and just feel the texture against his fingertips. He’d lick his lips, press them together before tracing them with his digits, marvel analytically at the sensitivity of cerise curves while something constricted inside his chest for the ephemerality of an infinitesimal moment. There were shallow lines among his facial features that he didn’t remember ever getting…  _ ‘Vain’ _ , someone would whisper faraway, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to be too upset about it… Then again, that might’ve been only what bubbled up to the surface from whatever was simmering underneath.

He got a glimpse of it here and there. Sometimes, he felt like he was going to shudder out of his own skin, huddled in one corner of wherever the ‘episode’ had struck him; sometimes, he couldn’t stop the sensation of constant threat, the fight or flight response, the restlessness when he couldn’t just up and run away. He’d caught himself frantically looking at walls as though doing so would suddenly make a gape within them, or calculating how far he’d have to rear back for shatter-proof glass to explode upon impact...how far of a fall he’d be able to survive. 

There were also times, conceivably after those ‘episode’s, that he simply felt drained...fatigued with an exhaustion nestled within his very bones that his only way out was crawling out of himself. And he didn’t know how to do it, how to shed himself and become something nameless, faceless...maybe become a facet of nothingness even. 

It wasn’t with the promise of a better morrow that he drifted off to sleep. 

The dark haloes under his eyes accentuated the haunted look that swirled in azure irises, but there was nothing that could be done about either of them, not for the time being at least. 

It had been Angeal’s idea. More like him practically begging the older man to come along that had the redhead finally acceding. 

He’d known, though, that it was a bad idea from the very beginning.

_ This _ just confirmed his intuition.

_ This _ was how his every cell was thrumming with the desire to either take his sword and slaughter everyone, or to beat a hasty retreat through the crowd and get out as soon as he could.  _ This _ was also him sweating profusely under his garments and the too tight feeling of the collar of his dress shirt that was restricting his airway.

The luxurious off-white fabric still felt foreign underneath his fingertips as he hooked his digits around the neckband, not quite used to it despite having don the entire attire on his person, himself. Once he pulled it away from the cold, clammy column of his throat, he finally felt like he could breathe; inhaled deep a few times before deciding to unbutton the first few, then three and then, yet another button. 

His lookalike behind the looking glass resembled a drunkard that had spent many a day in Goblin’s bar. The thought would’ve probably brought a smile to his lips in the past, but his gaze caught the frames that were resting beside the wash basin, and suddenly the alcohol on his breath wasn’t strong enough.

He had to leave.  _ Now. _

Sadly, the window in the bathroom wasn’t big enough, and that only left him the main entrance; or in this case, exit.

Running a hand through his hair and disheveling the already unruly flames, his restless strides brought him quickly to the bathroom door; turned the knob, across the threshold and into the hallway, and thankfully, only a handful of nameless faces were mingling here and there. Glancing at them in passing and not long enough to gauge their emotions or their intent, he made his way toward the front door, and it took more effort than he was willing to admit not to linger by the archway in the corridor; not to linger and bask in the brightness of the smile on Angeal’s pale lips. He didn’t want to ruin it for him-well, not ruin it for him earlier than his egress would.

The clipped excuse that he was  _ ‘just heading out to get some fresh air’  _ was apparently enough to let him off the hook to be able to get out of the house, and the triumphant feeling that came with it nearly had him staggering. Too many parameters factored in, too many facets to consider…and his thoughts were racing… 

_ Too much. Too much. _

_ Breathe.  _

_. _

_. _

_. _

He hadn’t counted the blocks, but judging by the street name sign glaring dispassionately at him in block letters, he was halfway between the venue and the headquarters when the thrum of fight or flight was brought to a simmer in his veins; not there and yet not going away until… Just under the surface, forever under his skin-... 

“-Rhapsodos?” 

It gave him pause.

“ _ Genesis Rhapsodos? _ ”

Really, it made him freeze on the spot as the stranger- _ a woman _ -approached him. He wasn’t, however, given the chance to find out what her motivations were, or why she was so amazed at seeing him, so… _ happy? _ Because in that moment, he realized he was being followed; that he was being watched. 

“I’m Adalros Thorids from-” 

-His theory was confirmed when-

“-I’m sorry Ms. Thorids but you can’t-” 

- _ Turks. Of course. _ The irritation was also something new in terms of him being proven right. It didn’t help stave off the coagulation of emotions he’d been keeping at bay… He didn’t mind being pushed to the sidelines as the agents in black suits took care of her-whoever she was, wherever she was from, whatever her occupation was-but he couldn’t believe he was being tailed; couldn’t accept that he’d been so out of it that he hadn’t noticed it until now,  _ and for how long?! _

“ _ -You need me! You need me to know the  _ **_tru_ ** _ - _ ”

-Something slithered cold and heavy in the bottom of his stomach, watching as they ushered her inside a sleek black vehicle that had pulled up on the curb, going with the unrelenting hand against his shoulder that was making him walk backwards into the park behind him, and  _ No! _ _  
_

What happened in the next seconds, minutes, hours were much akin to clips cut from silent film; snippets, muted motions, explosions of emotions, and the heaviness of loud blows. 

_ Why the fuck didn’t they use their guns? Why was he looking forward to seeing those damn firearms he despised so much in their hands? More so, aimed at him?  _

There were more of them, and he hadn’t paid attention to where and how, just that the next instant, he was using anything he could get his hands on as a weapon- _ a helmet _ -a sickening thud- _ concussion _ -someone was sprawled on the sidewalk but he couldn’t stay around, he had to get away,  _ he had to. _

The rush of wind, the riotous hustle and bustle of pedestrians, the grumble and the buzz of rivers of vehicles and transportation, some zooming past and the rest frozen in time… 

By the time he was settling in the cool familiarity of the leather embrace of the couch, the night had already fallen. The lights were dimmed, barely there as he drank himself to oblivion gazing at the two frames he had so pusillanimously  _ stolen _ . They were of simple things, sentimental moments, meaningful fragments of space-time captured within the dimensions of a photograph. 

Of a spiky black-haired First Class SOLDIER and a girl…a brunette, wearing a proportionate pink ribbon at the base of her waist-length plait and a matching dress; amid a sea of ivory and chartreuse lilies, illuminated by the sun… Forever embraced and just a step away from… 

The characters in the next one were the same people…but not quite. Older perhaps. There was a cross-shaped scar on the boy’s visage; a temperance in how they were holding themselves, less urgent, more  _ intimate _ … Still embraced, locking lips, and there was a glimpse of their youthfulness as they each made a half of a heart with their fingers for the hapless cameraman.

A direct echo of today at the altar…a replica of when they invited everyone inside their  _ home. _

Or perhaps, it was the other way around.

There was really no correlation-at least not any that his mind could make at the moment in its state of inebriation-between what he was gazing at and the subtle yet gradually increasing downturn of his lips. There was no linkage, no correspondence between them and what his mind was conjuring up, what it was recalling… 

_ “Will you swear fealty to Shinra, and loyalty to SOLDIER-”  _

_ “-Go on a date with me.”  _

_ A handsomely nonplussed visage…  _

_ “Go on a date with me.”  _

_ …And a kiss…  _

The vestiges of the reminiscence trembled down his spine, and the bitterness it left on his tongue, the warmth and the sweetness of the ache engulfing his chest couldn’t be eroded by the liquor he kept knocking back; drowning himself in the bottles that were lining the coffee table didn’t yield him any answers. 

The hinge mechanism whirred, and he shot up in his seat so fast the wave of nausea-induced by the abrupt onset of his vertigo-crashed through him an infinitesimal instant later. Swallowing against the bile rising up the back of his throat, he waited for his late-night visitor to show himself, clutching the neck of the drink he’d been partaking harder than what was necessary. Because he knew it wasn’t whom he was awaiting… It would never be the one, though why-... 

…-It was Angeal. 

And it wasn’t.

He’d never get used to seeing his best friend like this, and frankly didn’t intend to. More importantly however, was the emotion swirling in sapphire depths gazing at him; pinpointing him as though if they didn’t, the redhead would somehow vanish into thin air. The dread that had been shivering in them bled out slowly but surely, mingled with something else as an unnameable look took its place. 

“How’s the party, wazzit treatin’ you right?” He slurred, winced at the unintended acridity that laced his words. “‘M sorry ‘n’g. Wish tha’ I could be there but-...” Gesturing ineloquently with his hand to get his point across but to no avail, he concentrated on trying to find his verbiage. “Too much in m’head. Shoulda seen the bad signs.”

There was no utterance that could quite capture how he felt; it was as though he was in the presence of a veritable stranger in that moment, and the one following it, and the one after that. 

It wasn’t Angeal at all.

“What party?”

The bone-chilling serpent from before twisted and twined within the pit of his stomach, winding tight not at all dissimilar to a coil ready to spring free. 

Something flickered- _ the lights _ -suddenly so bright they burned through his retinas, leaving blurry, luminescent haloes in his vision, but just as abruptly, it was back to the dim living room, and he couldn’t see, he couldn’t see anywhere! He wanted to call out, call Angeal but only a garbled mutter fell from his lips as though  _ they _ had glued his mouth shut. And there was someone...if he squinted too hard, if he blinked and pressed his eyes shut numerous times...a silhouette- _ a man _ -

-Panic seized him and fueled him at the same time. Cold sweat broke out across epidermis… A voice, someone was saying something but it felt like coming from underwater…or maybe he was drowning? 

_ “Angeal!” _

_ Angeal! _

He wanted to cry out but nothing was coming out, his ears were filled by the waves crashing against the shore, overhead-

“ _ Angeal! ‘Ngeal! ‘Geal!-  _ ”

“ _ -lm down, Gen. _ Calm down…” He was being pulled inexorably against a broad chest, unyielding…and when that firmly steady hand settled against his hair, started carding through it like-

_ Was Costa Del Sol a dream? _

-he stopped thrashing- _ more like flailing like a flounder out of water _ -

“It’s alright Gen…  _ It’s alright… _ I’m sorry.” A nose nuzzled in between mussed up tresses, a chin digging against his skull, and he felt safe…he felt safe…

“I’m sorry  _ Gen, _ I’m sorry.”

It took him a second, a minute, an hour to realize that the sobs that were wracking their tangle of limbs were originating from him and not his best friend. That at one point, he’d started weeping and now he couldn’t stop. 

“ _ -Shh-hh… _ ” 

That Angeal was shushing him like a kid, his own voice trembling as he did so; that he was trying to soothe him in any way, shape, or form he could, and the redhead wanted for it and hated it at the same time. 

It didn’t take long for the tears to subside and peter out; took slightly more time for the saline trails down his visage to dry up and pull the epidermis taut. But how long it took for him to actually calm down enough to be able to lay the frames next to the liquor bottles for Angeal to see, the redhead didn’t know; felt the hand fall away, heard the negligible click of the frames against one another and the glass as one of them was picked up.

The weight of the silence that settled over them was akin to the four feet worth of dirt over a coffin in a grave.

“Tell me the truth…” was the quiet utterance. “ _ Please, _ Angeal.” 


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from a different narrative. I'm not sure if there will be more chapters from this point of view, but I guess we'll see as we get further ahead because characters seem to have their own way most of the time. While I always try to portray characters as close to canon as I can, I'm really not sure about this one because I've had so little experience writing from this point of view; therefore, I can only hope that I've been able to capture it merely alright (I'm not aiming for greatness here). 
> 
> As usual, all the errors, typos and mistakes are mine, and I'm sorry for them slipping my mind. Without further ado, enjoy.

Are you doing alright?

Where are you?

It’s been four years.

This will be the 89th letter that I’ve written, but I will not send out any more.

I hope that you will receive this last letter.

Zack, the flowers are selling very well. It makes everyone smile. It’s all thanks to you.

.

.

.

But you know all this, right? Still, that doesn’t change how much I wanted to write this letter. Those questions, they might seem superfluous now, but once, what seems like many years ago, they were all that occupied my mind every second of every day.

It’s easy now; easy to forget, easy to remember at the same time; the good memories, the bad ones, the sadness and the joy. 

It’s easy now, to know where you are.

So easy to raise my head from where I’m composing this letter and see you on the other side of the glass, working in the lawn of  _ our  _ house, surrounded by the flowers  _ we  _ sowed together. To see that expression of deep concentration on your face softened by your smile before you flop on your back and bask in the brilliant sunshine.

It’s also easy to know whether you’re doing alright or not.

You look sad sometimes. It happens very rarely, but it mostly happens when you think no one’s watching; especially when your mentor, Angeal, comes to visit and you think his kindhearted eyes aren’t watching you. It makes something in my heart shiver, like a bird is flapping its tiny wings within my chest, and I don’t know how to let it out. I don’t know if I should… But then again, you gaze at me with your eyes, and…

Remember the first time we talked about your eyes? Right after you got me my ribbon,  _ the ribbon _ , and told me that you worked with SOLDIER. I can still remember how I thought that it’d turn into our biggest argument yet, and still you managed to- _ we _ managed to turn it around. I can still hear what you said that day…

_ Eyes infused with mako energy. _

And then, you spoke what I had been thinking about...about them being the color of the sky. That they weren’t scary at all, but instead pretty. They were what gave me the courage to leave the slums and come to the upper plate; along with the flower wagon you made me. It’s so easy to lose myself in them when you hold me, when you let me hold you…Your face cradled by my hands, mine cupped in your big, warm, calloused palms. They make me feel safe, they make me feel cared for, and for that I’m grateful.

Zack, I sometimes think about how things could’ve gone differently; how it was such an unlikely occurrence for my otherwise normal day to be changed, for my life to be turned upside down by a guy falling from the sky. And then, for that guy to be you. I… When I think too hard about it, it makes me feel terrible sometimes, because if you never had that fight with your mentor, I’d never have met you, we’d never be where we are now… I wouldn’t know that you scratch your head when you’re nervous, I wouldn’t know how beautiful your laughter is, how it sounds like… It makes me feel selfish at times. But, I think I’d allow myself this selfishness when it comes to you!

It’s always been difficult for me to say goodbye, to close my letters to you…but not anymore. I know life isn’t as dangerous as it used to be, that you might miss it sometimes, and I really don’t judge you for it. You changed my beliefs about SOLDIER so thoroughly; and while I know not everybody is like you, there’s your mentor, and then there’s you… And you are enough for me. I can only hope that us, that  _ this _ helps you miss it less than you otherwise would. Again, it’s one of those selfishnesses I allow myself; not to worry about whether you’d be coming home when we part, not to have to wait for indefinite amounts of time to see you again, to be with you again. 

That’s why this letter is going to be the last one I’m sending out. And I’ll make sure it reaches you, unlike all the other 88 ones that got lost on their way from me to you, because I’m going to deliver it myself… As soon as you come inside. And maybe, we can both sit down, you in your favorite armchair, and I sitting beside you, watching you as your beautiful eyes trace the lines.

Eternally yours,

Aerith.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possibly full of typos, errors, etc...even more so than before because this was written, edited and posted all in one day. But I guess y'all know the drill by now... I apologize in advance. I'll reread it when I'm thinking more coherently and edit it to the best of my abilities, again.

Ogee top. Beryl of grass expanding all around contrasting with dark green of the foliage overhead. Immaculate black granite… 

Why did it have to be gold?

Standing rooted to the point in space-time he’d been occupying for the past moments, minutes, hours, with an auburn-wreathed head tilted slightly to the side, he stared or perhaps glared at the gilt engraving as though it was what had wronged him. 

The awareness that he was so tense that his muscles were starting to ache, that he’d been clenching his jaws for who-knows-how-long crawled slowly through neural pathways…but with the realization, with the acknowledgment and then letting go-...   


...-someone was saying something in the distance but it felt like they were speaking underwater, the words were intelligible but their meaning…it didn’t register-

_ -something in Wutain, extremely vainglorious-  _

_ -something silver, otherworldly and streaked with carmine- _

_ -Fight. A hit landed. A kick, a punch- _

_ -the glint of a sword- _

_ -painful to- _

_ -“Damare*-!” A yell wrought from impossible heights of rage, from blinding agony, and that was his literal downfall- _

_ -intrusive pain- _

_ -blood- _

_ -packed, dank earth- _

_ -painful to exist- _

_ -something moonspun, silken- _

_ -Clutch. Claw.- _

_ -dirt under jagged fingernails- _

…-dirt under trimmed fingernails. Stalks of grass were digging in his forehead, blurred in his vision,  _ too near _ , and he couldn’t stop, he had to delve deeper, harder, faster because  _ no, no, no, no-...! _

“ _ -esis! _ ” Strong arms, a firm grip, but he wasn’t going to give up, never. “Genesis,  _ Stop! _ ”  _ Never! _

A pathetic and low whimper fell from his lips as the hold around his waist became unyielding, the pull became inexorable, and he was wrenched away; dragged,  _ no, hoisted over a broad shoulder,  _ and-...

“ _ Fuck you! _ ” But he wasn’t saying it to the ivory-haired individual carrying him away. “You promised!” Thrashing and trying to free himself was met with equal resistance even as he continued to yell. “ _ Let me go! _ ” Glaring at the golden engraving with all the hate, all the feelings roiling within him that he could muster, he spat acridly. “ _ Fuck you! _ You promised  _ you motherfucker, _ you pro-...!”

The gravity shifted, and he was immediately winded when his back hit the ground; wasn’t sure if the grunt that got stifled in his throat was due to the pain slowly unfolding within his cage of bones or because it was just too much…too much; and he couldn’t deal with it, he couldn’t face it, let alone accept it.

Maybe being overall tense and standing rooted to his place had been a better idea than trying to let go of his mental restraints.

Maybe...asking Angeal for the truth in the first place had been his wrongest request yet.

Glancing at the aforementioned man who was towering above him-looking torn and agonized all in one-and then, at the gilt, debossed letters, the redhead felt something give deep within him. It wasn’t at all like a dam breaking, there was no rush of aquamarine galloping through the cracks...but more akin to the curtain falling away to reveal something brittle that had been thoroughly and irrevocably broken-...   


_ -“metals that have higher tensile strengths are also more brittle, so it has to be-...”- _

There were hot pinpricks burning in his eyes but he couldn’t tear his gaze away, couldn’t...

“Why did it have to be gold?” was the quiet utterance, thick with the tears he couldn’t shed...hoarse from the shards cluttering up his throat. It was hard to meet the owner of the gaze its weight he’d been feeling on himself for the entirety of the time they’d come here. Always there, always patient, and yet... The pain that was swirling within twin sapphire lakes was the most open expression he’d seen on his best friend’s visage since he’d been back. It didn’t make it any easier to bear, however. It did nothing to assuage the grief, the ache gripping him by the throat.

It took him several tries to be able to speak coherently because at some point, he’d started weeping and surprised himself so thoroughly that he didn’t know what to do with himself. Forgot who he was or where they were. Just let the emotions crash through him, for them to throw him hither and thither, unmoored as he was. When he hadn’t imagined sinking further than where he’d been possible, this had opened up a new chasm right from under him, and he was plummeting like a wreckage wrought from lead.

Angeal, on the other hand, seemed even more conflicted between trying to comfort him or maintaining his distance; and whatever was going through his grey-wreathed head seemed to be eating him up from the inside.

“The-the grieving process…” A pause, and he had to shut his eyes tight to try and staunch the salinity that burned all the way down his cheek. “It’s important to have a…” He couldn’t say it, because it wasn’t true, it wasn’t… “A b-body-!” He died a small death, because it wasn’t just a body. It was a body he’d come to know better than his own, one he’d trailed with his fingertips, with his hands, his lips-... 

A tremulous breath escaped him, and it felt as though his very soul-if one believed in such notions-was going to shudder out of his cage of flesh and blood. How he wished it would, but he wasn’t getting his hopes up. He never was. 

_ No. _

He’d learned that by now.

No. It was way more than that, it- _ he _ was a person.“ _ Just-! _ Let me see him..one last time.”

Even in his state of mental distress, the redhead knew that if he had taken Buster Sword and stabbed his best friend in the gut with it, it wouldn’t have reduced him to the state his words apparently did. As it was, Angeal slowly dropped to his knees in front of him, arms bent at elbows and palms facing up as the younger man stared at some point on the ground; Genesis’ anguish mirrored on aquiline features before those sapphire eyes hesitantly met his azure. 

The shame- _ was it shame? _ -inside them didn’t make any sense. Before he could so much as frown, before his best friend inched forward toward him-which had him retreating on his elbows-he was given his answer.

“There’s nothing there.” Hushed, almost inaudible if he’d been a normal human. But he wasn’t, and he’d be damned-...

“There’s no bod-...!” 

-The speed with which he lunged toward his previous target surprised even himself, had him wondering for an instant if Angeal’s spine would dislocate from having to make such an abrupt twist-

“ _ Gen, Stop! _ ” 

_ So close, _ he was so close to digging up that-

-Something, someone- _ Angeal _ -slammed into him and they rolled together on the ground, and the snarl that broke past his lips was uncontrollable; so was the virulent feeling of betrayal rising like bile up the back of his throat. 

“ _ Liar! _ ”

Sending an infuriated glance over his shoulder, he focused on his best friend who was keeping him away from getting to his goal. His fingers found the collar of the ivory-haired man’s shirt of their own accord, bunched it up… A grimace contorted his visage while he crossed his hands and curled his digits around a thick neck, watching as the breathing of the individual beneath him became labored. But even then, as intoxicated as he was by the promise of yet another death with his very own fingers, Genesis could see nothing but acceptance in those eyes… And it was more fuel to the fire of the rage that was currently singing in his veins; that was pounding in his ears loud enough that he could hear his own heartbeat. 

A wide, warm palm rose, mirrored his gesture before another slowly joined the other around his throat; but Angeal didn’t squeeze. Instead, he seemed to be having trouble finding his voice before uttering haltingly.

“ _ They… They  _ never-... gave it... to us.” Broken, guttural, and almost inaudible in its wheezed quality. Genesis wasn’t sure how much of it was of his own volition that his hold went slightly lax; whether it was because of what he had just heard and wanted to hear again, or because of the images that flashed in front of his eyes. “ _ They  _ never gave it to us-”

_ -more Wutain, over, and over again- _

_ -a shit-eating smirk- _

_ -couldn’t see his face! Can’t see his- _

_ -sinister, sinister what?- _

_ -a yell- _

_ -“Damare!” Because it was painful to hear it- _

_ -more shadows, standing around, in the sidelines- _

_ -“Nooo!”- _

_ - _ “Nooo!”

How he was on the ground didn’t seem to have registered within his brain, but somehow he was, and his best friend was trying his best to corral his thrashing and the wayward noises that he seemed too keen to make since they’d come here. The knowledge that they hadn’t grappled like this in a long, long time did nothing but add to the redhead’s mental agony as he threw his fist and watched it get caught within a wide palm. Neither seemed to get the upper hand as they kept rolling on the dirt, the blows they exchanged kept getting countered by their intended opponent.

It was poignant, the culmination of all their efforts, the futility of their entanglement. Angeal’s resistance wasn’t half-hearted, but what drove him was beyond Genesis. So was how the grey-haired man ended up being the one on top again, pinning him down for the time being as they both breathed heavily. 

Maybe it wasn’t so much changing his tactics as it was his eyes catching the sight of the abominable gilt lettering, but he found himself opening his mouth to voice what he’d nearly uttered earlier. 

“He… _ We  _ made a promise…That we’d…that...He’d follow-...” Genesis couldn’t say it without having the memory sear across his frontal cortex over and over again. But he had to plow onward, stared as vengefully as he could at the golden word etched on the black granite before finally choking out every word. “You promised…not to  _ die _ as long as I was alive.” Reverting his eyes back to the sapphire above him, he repeated as he died slowly inside. “I promised to follow that motherfucker to the gr-”

-His head whipped to the side, the pain from the punch he’d received sobering him up somewhat as the tang of blood bloomed over his taste buds. 

“It was an ambush… We didn’t even get there, but they… We had a mole, someone blabbed...bigtime… It was a massacre Genesis. No one…Gen, no one returned that day, no one survived.” There was a gravid pause. “You know better than anyone that he was only human.”

Not one more word after that. 

It would’ve been more easier to bear if Angeal continued to talk. If his best friend told him that it wasn’t his fault...that humans made mistakes, every single one of them; that it was human to err. But Genesis knew that it couldn’t be any further from the truth. 

Because it had been his fault.

It was perhaps the first time he actually heard the hustle and bustle of life continuing on around them...the whirr of engines, the cacophony of pedestrians going to and fro just on the other side of the palisade.

It wasn’t fair. But then again, when had life ever been?

The bitterness that came with it all bubbled up in his throat in an acerbic laugh. It didn’t die down even as he locked gazes with those sky-blue eyes above him that were swirling with so many emotions all at once 

“It was  _ my _ fault.” The memory hit him like a freight train, and it took every ounce of his willpower not to whimper, not to hiss in agony, not to writhe on the grass in sheer mental pain, but when the next words came out, all his efforts ended in smoke. “I fessed up.” 

Disbelief replaced worry, honesty was muddled up by confusion, and the look on Angeal’s face was killing him! And how many more deaths should he rise from before he was left to have his peace…or more likely, his eternal suffering? “I was the canary, the deep throat,  _ the Fucking Mole! _ ”

“Gen...what?” Severe pepper-and-salt eyebrows furrowed, their owner now seemingly torn between backing away from him like Genesis had suddenly caught fire or remaining where he was on top of him. “What did-…?”

“ _ I _ gave it all away.” The redhead drawled as he watched acceptance be displaced by betrayal. “I leaked like a  _ sieve- _ ”

This at least seemed to be the determining factor because Angeal did stand up, and he  _ did  _ back away; a grey-wreathed head bowed and was held in hands as though his whole world was crashing around his ears and he couldn’t bear the sight of it. And maybe it was. Maybe it was. 

“Genesis what have you done?!!” All of a sudden, incredulous sapphire eyes were on him, and he couldn’t bear them anymore. It was easier to look at a cold, meaningless slab of stone…but the word written on it made all the difference in the world.

In fact, it was the only one match that could burn this whole thing down.

Because he didn’t have peace; he was never going to have peace. Might as well make his surroundings match the eternal state of suffering he was going to endure for the rest of his life because-...

“-I killed Sephiroth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -黙れ or _'damare'_ means 'to be silent, to say nothing', or in other words, 'shut up', in Japanese.


	6. Chapter Six

His mind was abuzz with a myriad of thoughts. Words, sentences, books, and materials he had poured over for the entirety of the past month were express trains zooming to and fro in his mind. If he were any less pragmatic than he was, he’d say he saw haloes of them in his waking hours and behind his eyelids otherwise. 

Walking through immaculate corridors of HQ had never been so torturous after everything had been through. Angeal sometimes wondered in his efforts not to seem shifty-eyed that he was making it a lot worse. The extrasensory perception of being followed, of being watched seemed like an obnoxious thunderhead lingering over his head wherever he went. It was baseless now, he knew it logically, but it was hard to shrug it off after years and years of being under Administration’s all-seeing eyes. 

Dealing with Genesis wasn’t making any of it easier on him.

His redheaded best friend had been prone to rash behavior before, but it had reached harrowing heights during the past several weeks. If he hadn’t been there to keep an eye on the older man 24/7, he would’ve lost him a thousand times already, and that wasn’t an exaggeration. Genesis’ creativity and his seemingly endless reservoir of colorful ideas had never bothered him so much before, but his childhood playmate seemed intent on proving him wrong on every single definition regarding their relationship and their current predicament. Administration was getting suspicious about the state of Genesis’ recovery, and Angeal couldn’t really blame them. He was immensely grateful that they weren’t going to revert to compulsory methods for getting the information out of the former Commander. But that was one thing, trying to explain why his friend had suddenly decided to up the ante in his attempts at suicide was another. 

Angeal had never thought he’d ever stare his previous superiors in the face and  _ lie. _ It had been the ugliest feeling in the world, not very far behind failing to perform his commandeering duties and letting his men down, watching them die while being unable to save them. 

Maybe it hadn’t been a lie more than it had been an omission of the truth, of tiptoeing around it, but that didn’t exactly make him feel less like he’d failed himself and his own beliefs. It had made him die a little bit inside, but he didn’t have time for that between filing a request for more sentries and taking care of his best friend. 

It seemed, though-despite the dark-haired former General’s efforts-the number of soldiers keeping guard, the number of them patrolling the streets during the curfew, or said curfew hours didn’t make any difference for Genesis. He did what he wanted, and to hell with consequences. That-in a very morbidly desperate manner-was somewhat reassuring; it meant that all hadn’t been lost and there was still something left of his best friend down there. He just had to try harder to find it.

Truthfully, it was easier said than done.

Especially when with his every attempt at his own life thwarted one way or another, the auburn-haired man had grown distant and recluse. Nothing seemed to get through the chrysalis he seemed to be weaving around himself with each passing day, and that was what chilled Angeal to his bones; the fear that by the time he found a solution, Genesis would simply be too far gone. Not in the sense of physical presence, but in a sense of absence...in perpetuation of the vacant look that made those azure irises seem so hollow. It was the unmoving facial features, it was the prolonged silences that fed into the greedy trepidation gnawing at his insides.

He’d succumbed to bouts of hopelessness, to resignation in the face of it all a number of times...tried drowning it-responsibly, of course-in a bottle or so of hard liquor. Ironically, it was in those very occasions that he found the reason to continue forward; it was in the darkest depths of despair that he kept finding hope…in the depths of those azure eyes that seemed to come to life, in the emotions that fleeted over the redhead’s visage, in the stilted words that dropped from cerise lips once the alcohol had cut across that cocoon of control and reticence. Because Genesis joined him then, like old times, even though they were physically and emotionally apart and somehow still together. 

The drinks helped palliate the twinge of nostalgia stabbing in his chest, helped wash away the bitterness that came with the comparison...because this was nothing like old times. It ruined him bit by agonizing bit to see his best friend reduced to this shell of who he used to be; had him swallowing the lump of liquid magma pressing down on his throat swig after swig...had him trying to stifle silent sobs behind a calloused palm after the redhead had drunk himself to sleep. 

Sometimes, he still missed their silver-haired friend; wished he was around…just ‘round the corner in Administration, up to his eyes in paperwork in his office, or busy slashing the training room to ribbons.

Angeal had mourned the loss of the General like the thousands that wore all black and came to the streets, mourned him like his fans; like the men serving under him who were lucky-or unlucky based on their own words-to have been at the base instead of being at their commanding officer’s side...because once, a long time ago, he had also served under the strange, taciturn, silver-haired adolescent. Angeal had mourned Sephiroth like a friend, and if he daresaid, like _ a brother…  _ It had helped a little, but it never really filled that constant, tangible, depthless void. It hadn’t been only him who felt that way…because Sephiroth-even with his one-of-a-kind personality-had been a great General, and a really good friend. 

Trying to define the youngest of their trio in a handful of sentences was a transgression, one he wasn’t keen on adding to his ever-growing list of mistakes, but he could really use the younger man’s help now. And not only because he was the reason Genesis seemed hellbent on drinking himself to oblivion, but because if they somehow ended up being where they currently were regardless, Sephiroth would possibly know how to deal with what they had on their hands. 

Namely, the redhead’s espionage and treason. 

There were no other words for it, no way he could twist it around and make it seem like something else. The definition was pretty straightforward in constitution and it hadn’t changed during the transition. Any book on jurisprudence he could find had iterated and reiterated the same sentences...

_ “Treason against Shinra shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in a court-martial.” _

_ “Espionage is the crime of spying on the government and/or transferring secrets on behalf of a foreign country. If the other country is an enemy, Espionage may be Treason. The term applies particularly to the act of collecting military, industrial, and political data about one nation for the benefit of another.” _

...and the same punishments…

_ “The act of Treason is punishable by either death or life imprisonment. The court-martial consisting of the board of directors and the president shall have the power to declare the punishment for Treason.” _

It was tenuous. Akin to walking on the blade of a sword; only one misstep, and there would be nothing left of what used to be tern… It was with a heavy heart that Angeal set one foot ahead of the other, with a mind beset by problems and difficulties. There was no telling whether he was making the right decision by leaving his best friend alone...by closing the distance between himself and the destination he had in mind, but  _ without _ Sephiroth…without Genesis, he had no one to ask for opinions on the matter, no one to talk to, no one to share his burden with...

The burden that was his best friend being the reason that not only Sephiroth’s life had been forfeit but also the lives of thousands; thousands who had been fighting for a better future, for their families, for everything and for nothing; people who had believed in the same definitions as he and those who hadn’t; people who had put so much trust, so much belief in their General to have followed him to their  _ inevitable  _ demise.

Just as he and Genesis had sworn, once.

And maybe it was inane, all of it… Maybe it was foolhardy to risk one’s life in such a fashion, but these thoughts had been circulating in his brain from the very moment the redhead had told him the truth… The truth that Angeal wished was a big ugly  _ lie… _ The truth that he couldn’t gainsay because Genesis had looked him in the eye…   


_ Veritas liberabit vos. _

It was something he had believed in, once. But it wasn’t verisimilar, not this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote about Treason and Espionage is roughly based on the Constitution of the United States. The quote about their punishment is something I made up based on what seems to be the trend in such cases.
> 
> I'm nowhere near happy with this chapter, perhaps it's because Angeal decided all of a sudden to have a whole chapter for himself without previously asking for my opinion. But this was never intended to be here up until my Angeal muse made me write it, and then it was...


	7. Chapter Seven

“You’re right, I do need to come clean.”

This Angeal said to some point on the wall, sapphire irises not really taking in the pattern of the wallpaper. They were in the living room of Zack and Aerith’s house, with the couple sitting across from him; his protege occupying an armchair while his brunette partner sat on the armrest of said chair. 

“Are you sure about this?” The younger man uttered at length, his voice tinged with the worry the former General wasn’t seeing on his otherwise youthful face. They’d both worried for him since Genesis’ return, and before that...but his redheaded best friend’s comeback had added to it in ways that even Angeal couldn’t miss. He couldn’t blame them, not really… Wrangling with the transition and all the facets and people involved, with his own demons, and at the same time trying to maintain a semblance of a normal life, it was already hard. Doing all those while worrying himself sick over a person who looked nothing like his childhood friend and yet, was the one and only, was nigh impossible… Or so it’d seemed. 

Genesis seemed to be calming down after the night of Zack and Aerith’s wedding ceremony, but it had taken Angeal making a clusterfuck of an otherwise- _ possibly _ -easily manageable situation and the redhead promptly breaking down right in front of his eyes for it to happen. 

_ “Tell me the truth… _ Please, _ Angeal.” _

It still broke something within him when he remembered, not what, but how the older man had uttered that to him. It made him close his eyes, made him rub them with his thumb and forefinger while heaving a sigh before brushing his palm against his face.

He didn’t know why he had come here. Perhaps it was to share a burden, to ask for advice, for guidance… Maybe it was to let them know that if both of them somehow ended up dead, that the world was half-way burned to Apocalypse, it was because of the decision Angeal had made to let Genesis know the truth… Maybe it was just to  _ talk to someone.  _ And Goddess knew, he was lonely… If he was having a rough day, that was enough to bring a derisive twist to his mouth, an acerbic twinge to his mood… But now, he had no energy but to feel resignation in the face of it…nothing but acceptance of the truth. 

And it was the truth. 

Zack was there, yes. So were a handful of others he still respected; who used to be his superiors, turned colleagues and then ex-superiors and ex-colleagues with his resignation. But they all had their own lives, and Angeal just couldn’t…not all the time at least. He couldn’t expect anything from Genesis when he was still dealing with so many things all at once...when the redhead was the very reason the dark-haired former General kept finding himself at his own wit’s end.

He was grateful, nevertheless. Couldn’t bring himself to voice it however, couldn’t bring himself to try and put on his best reassuring smile because he knew it’d fall flat no matter his efforts…but he let it be shown in his eyes. And even if Zack didn’t see it or outwardly acknowledge it, something gave in Aerith’s visage, perhaps a mirror of what he was trying to convey, and it was enough.

Maybe he had already made up his mind before coming over, but he’d come here again if time were to reverse.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

* * *

I don’t think I’d ever seen you come over to our house so frantic with worry. Seeing you stride toward the front door without even noticing me and the group of kids I was teaching in the lawn was already enough for me to know how bad it was...there was no need for my connection to the Planet to figure out how deep your worries ran.

I wanted to call you, but I wasn’t sure if I could be the company you needed. Couldn’t help but send a short thanks- _ old habits _ -that Zack had decided to come home early today. Watched you two head toward the living room through the glass of the windows, exchanging hurried words, before wrenching my gaze away and focusing back on my little classroom. 

I’d be lying if I said I noticed how I taught the kids that day. Lying even more if I said I didn’t dismiss class early and worried the fabric of my skirt as I heard your voices ebb and tide in volume...still torn between trying to help or staying out of whatever it was that had upset you so.

I know it’s about your friend again.

I push down whatever comes to my mind regarding him, because I don’t want to rely on those powers when it comes to knowing people. I don’t want to have the advantage-or disadvantage-of clairvoyance, of foresight, whatever humans call them… I don’t want to pass judgement based on how the Planet perceives people. It takes energy, it can be tiresome...but it’s worth it...most of the time.

I can only hope that he’s alright, but something tells me it’s too late for that.

That’s the reason I find myself up on my feet and approaching the house. I can pick up what you and Zack are talking about without even trying. Inside, and I can hear the incessant flip of pages, the cacophony of thuds as Zack paces and goes through books before discarding them on the floor, quoting lines about treason, about espionage...about punishment. 

I stand in the archway, and he gives me an agonizing look that shivers down to my heart. I can’t help but wonder what your friend has done…I can’t bring myself to look in your direction because the despair in his face can’t be a tenth of what I can feel from your side of the room. 

I do it anyway, and it breaks my heart. 

I want to say ‘What happened?’ but breaking the silence that has suddenly fallen on all of us seems like a transgression. 

I don’t think I’d be lying if I said it felt as though the whole world was waiting with bated breath to hear your verdict. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t taking its toll on you already...as though you were preparing yourself for something monumental… And I couldn’t help but be afraid of when you were through, of where it’d leave you… I couldn’t help but fear it even more when I saw my worry reflected in Zack’s eyes as he exhausted the last book dry before depositing himself on his favorite armchair.

“You can’t do this ‘Geal.” His voice sounds defeated in its quiet quality, and the silence still reigns untroubled. You’re so weary that you seem like you can’t even bring yourself to show how incredulous you are at what your protege is telling you. “How many years has it been? What good will it do to tell them that Genesis was behind everything? Will it bring any of them back? Will it bring him back or somehow reverse the transition?” A gravid pause. “All you’ll be doing is just add one more dead person… He’d be the scapegoat for the previous regime’s past mistakes, the people will rant and rave for some time, and then, he’ll either be forgotten like all the ones they call heroes...or he’ll be remembered worse than President Shinra himself.” A sigh...and I somehow find myself emboldened enough to overstep the invisible barrier that had been holding me back from imposing on your shared space; over the threshold, across the room, and I sit on the armrest with my eyes fixed on you… 

I can almost hear the gears turning in your head. I don’t know if you had already made up your mind when you came here; I don’t know if you agree with Zack or not, but I can see the effect of his words on you… The franticness from before is gone, so’s the despair and incredulity. But it makes me wonder what it is that’s replaced all of them… _ Resolve _ perhaps? To do what, I wonder.

It takes some time for the sky of your irises to become clear of thoughts. I can’t place the look in them like I could last time… You don’t say anything, just nod once, curtly, before you rise to your feet. We follow your suit, holding hands and clasping our fingers together because apart from words, that’s all we can do…like the whole world; wait for your decision.

Dogging your footsteps toward the door, I finally muster up the courage to reach for your arm. It gives you pause long enough for me to smile, and for you to linger there, over the threshold of our front door. 

“You’ll do the right thing.” I say, but when Zack’s hold on my hand tightens after the words have escaped my mouth it makes me wonder if perhaps I shouldn’t have. 

“I wouldn’t do it…  _ Man, _ I don’t think even Sephiroth would do it if he were you...everything between them aside.” Zack hastens after my words, and while there was nothing in your eyes before, now I can see pain...streaked with something else. “He’s your friend.” The soft scrape of Zack’s hand in his hair makes me notice the hint of a sheepish smile on his face. “I’d say the only other one beside me and Aerith.” 

It doesn’t help… I feel like we should apologize but I can’t...because it won’t unsay what we- _ albeit unwittingly _ -set free to gnaw at your insides with our words. Your eyes, they’ve become cloudy again...but regardless, you fix both of us with an unreadable expression when you last open your mouth. 

“I need to show him something first.”

Thunder crashes somewhere overhead drowning out when Zack calls your name beside me. You close the door shut behind yourself, and I’m left guessing while your protege fears. I read it in his eyes when I turn around to face him…still gazing at the place your back occupied in the doorframe.

I want to repeat what I told you, but I’m not sure anymore.

Another thunder swallows the city before it starts to rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another unbeta'ed and unedited chapter brought to you by yours truly. Also I've been dealing with a writer's block and moving out of my house at the same time, hence the overall horrendousness of this chapter, the break I inevitably took from writing, and possible future delays.


	8. Chapter Eight

The joy of seeing Lucrecia alive wasn’t overshadowed by the awe of seeing Midgar. The metropolis had been under construction when he had gone to the ground. Never in his wildest dreams could Vincent Valentine imagine how vast and how modern it was… Nothing like where Shinra had started, nothing like any of the towns and villages it was built upon, or those in other countries of the past. Dimly, he acknowledged that those things could’ve changed during all these years as well, but he knew better than to hold Shinra in such high esteem.

What overshadowed that delight was what had transpired since the moment they had set foot inside the epitome of the company’s glory.

Standing in a padded cell, with a burden that felt like the whole world had crashed down on his shoulders, the former Turk had no one else to blame for getting out of the basement of the Shinra Manor but himself. He could rant and rave and try to hold someone else culpable for it, but it wouldn’t be further from the truth.

His crimson irises fell on the woman who was sitting on the ground a couple of feet away from him. He could reach her if he wanted but it was the sense of a yawning chasm-between the almost negligible distance that separated them-that held his hand.

They had both changed...and not at all.

On the outside, it was as if not even a day had passed since the day the gunslinger had last seen whom he had once called the light of his life. Neither of them had aged...their physicalities, their appearances not betraying the many years that had passed since they had first set foot on the face of Gaia. If they pulled their credentials from the Archives-that’s if they weren’t gone like all the dirty little secrets Shinra made sure they stayed buried-they’d veritably look the same as their ID photos…

But not quite.

They hadn’t been wrong when they’d said eyes are the windows to one’s soul.

Maybe that was why the woman he had loved so much, _once_ , kept refusing to meet his gaze...fled from it even. But Vincent knew her better, and he was sure that she knew him well enough, too.

Lucrecia was different, and so was he...but deep down, buried underneath all that they both had went through together and the ordeals they had borne on their own, the core of who they were was left unchanged. The contrived separation that had been inflicted upon them brought that into a clarity so painful it lanced at his heart...because how could he have been so blind?

How could he not have seen it before?

The mere thought that this could be something brought on by the presence of the demon within him made him want to crawl into the concrete walls that were so impeccably hidden behind the cushions that lined the walls. Further examination proved it false, because Chaos had been there when he’d woken up and found out that not only Lucrecia was gone, but Sephiroth had been taken away as well...when he'd found himself discarded like the many other bodies and mangled wretched _things_ -neither human nor monster-that Shinra had left behind; something irrevocably broken and discarded, in more ways than one...undeserving of redemption, doomed to eternal retribution because he had failed many others, but also himself.

He’d never known what had befallen Lucrecia, where she’d been, how it was possible for her to remain as she had been without a sharing her existence with an infernal fiend. And how he knew it was all thanks to the very same creature he so abhorred but had to coexist with till the end of his days...the very end of time, until nothing remained of what was and would be but ash and dust…

The concept of longevity to the extent that was forced upon him was an offensive notion, one that he deliberately shoved to the darkest, deepest recesses of his mind because he had no choice, no say in any of it all...no egress.

But his way out of this situation was just across from him, on the other side of the room in the form of a nondescript door that could only be opened from the other side. There was a cot, basic amenities...and not much else.

They’d told them it used to be Sephiroth’s room before President Shinra and Hojo had deemed him ready to be enrolled into SOLDIER...had finally deemed it the right time for them to reap what they’d sown...to finally make money on what was rumored-at the time-to be Shinra’s most successful _project_ yet…

How wrong they had all been…

He had no sympathy for them, given that they had lived and _lived_ long enough to witness the disastrous ramifications of their erroneous ways. They were all losers in this game, but more so Sephiroth… The silver-haired boy who had been robbed of his very birthright...of a chance to _live_ .

Vincent blamed himself.

Shinra used to make sure that freedom wasn’t even something those who wore their gilded manacles dreamt of-and based on what they’d been shown, what had been recounted to them-as Shinra’s most prized _possession_ , the youngest General in the history of Gaia hadn’t been exempt...not until his death.

The gunslinger had thought, once, that the news of losing one’s child would bring any parent to ruin...but standing there, gazing at Lucrecia, he didn’t know what to think...didn’t want to think at all, because otherwise, he was forced to face the unacceptable, the unconscionable...the uncondonable.

The brunette was wearing a white coat, painfully reminiscent of the one she wore during the many hours he’d accompanied her around the labs. Dainty fingers were wringing it but that, apart from her chestnut irises roaming the enclosed space, was the only sign that she was in fact alive...that she was not a phantom his mind had cruelly conjured to torment him more. Perhaps it’d have been for the best that she was one...something dredged up from his recollections, even the more recent ones...the ones in which she never smiled anymore, that she seemed perpetually on the verge of hysteria...drenched in the depression that was eating away at her.

He would rather have her morose and distant, than this.

“Lucrecia…” Something in him bristled at how supplicative it sounded, but Vincent pushed it to the side, plowed onwards because that was all he knew. That was how he had tried to reason with Hojo at first only for all of them to end up where they currently were. His heart was already bleeding, the woman she had loved had dealt him the blow no amount of time could heal, so it was with the belief that he had nothing to lose anymore that he tried...not for their own sake, but for the sake of another.

Kneeling down, he braced himself for the moment his fingers-prosthetic or otherwise-held the brunette’s shoulders, acknowledged dimly that it was the closest they had gotten since they had been reunited...decided that he had an eternity to fall to ruin because it was him bridging that gap again, because he had given and lost before, and yet here he was doing it again...because he was still trying and… “Lucrecia, look at me.”

Those chestnut irises held none of that light he so loved, no recognition, no _pain_ ; because they had been the harbingers of pain for the person who once occupied this room-this _cell_ -and yet, they held no remorse.

The downturn of his lips was subtle and yet wholly involuntary.

“You can’t do this.” When no response, verbal or otherwise, was forthcoming, he tried again; almost too desperate. “You can’t be seriously considering this.”

It wasn’t at all dissimilar to talking to a hollow shell.

“And why can’t I?”

It was much like getting slapped in the face. He wanted to recoil, to distance himself like the individual before him had suddenly caught fire, but he remained and blamed the training he’d received as a Turk for it. The minute twitch of his fingers where they were grabbing the woman’s shoulders was the only sign that he was under a tremendous amount of stress, unbeknownst to even himself. Vincent wondered whether she could read the disbelief in his eyes, or she was too far gone to notice anything, too blinded by what she possibly saw as an invaluable opportunity.

“You’re mistaking stubbornness for strength-...”

“-Will you be the one who denies me my right this time?” For once, her eyes held his and in them was nothing but self-absorption. His words had all but fallen on deaf ears. “I’m tired of being overlorded by men.” Something flitted across the visage in front of him, and his internal reaction to it was knee-jerk: analyzation, categorization, because never before had he seen such an expression on that face. “Shinra, Hojo...and now you… I thought you were different, that I _knew_ you… that you _loved me_ , that you had my back!”

At this he could no longer remain where he was. Standing up, it felt like the cell was turning ‘round his head, that somehow the ground had vanished right under his feet and he was plummeting down an endless hole.

It was laughable, in the most acerbic way possible...the whole situation, the words they had exchanged, even themselves. He didn’t believe in any faith but he found himself wishing for a divine hand to crush them into nonexistence right at that moment. It served no purpose but to further exacerbate the pungent taste on his tongue. So when he pivoted on his heel, it was not so much of a surprise and yet quite so that he uttered: “I wish I had never met you.” There were more words there, roiling inside his brain, which he would’ve voiced if he were less taciturn, but he didn’t; made his way toward the door that was left ajar and never looked back...let those words, let his dreams, let a veritable part of him be sepulchered where the childhood of who could’ve been their son was buried.

It wasn’t until he was deliberating how possible it’d be for him to survive a fall from the roof of the Shinra building that General Hewley caught up to him. And Vincent was having none of it, because-...

“-Why did you bring me here? Why did you convince me to leave when I might’ve been buried and forgotten there forever?” Maybe it wasn’t right to bring this upon someone-whom as far as the gunslinger was concerned-was quite possibly clueless as to why he was suddenly throwing what amounted to an adult tantrum, but he knew no one here...everyone was a veritable stranger in a world he didn’t recognize anymore. Hewley was different, because he had been the only other person apart from Veld that he had seen that day, when he’d first woken up. “What would you have me do? Testify against Hojo? He’s already won…” When he next added, it was with the sensation that a deep well of despair had opened up within him. “Again…” Raised his head to regard sapphire eyes, and it was the younger man whom he was addressing this time. “How does your honor condone this?”

The raven-haired swordsman who seemed minutely taken aback quickly composed himself. The hefty sword that had always been strapped on his back during the time Vincent had been around him was surprisingly missing. The absence of it didn’t seem to make much of a difference in how the younger man closed the distance between them, came to stand next to him and crossed his hands on the small of his back. Vincent wasn’t sure whether the perception that something was bothering Hewley was a mere projection of his own mood or something probable. Sapphire irises were focused straight ahead, taking in the sun as it was setting against the horizon before that prominent chin was lowered, sable tresses partially hiding the profile he’d been studying.

“I’m sorry.” was the grave response. It was hard not to notice the air of defeat, the almost imperceptible haunch of black-clad shoulders from up close, but the ex-Turk was confused. He was given his answer soon, however. “It doesn’t help, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that I’ve failed you as well.”

It didn’t help...and it did, a little bit.

His perplexion evolved into something of another nature because he couldn’t understand how someone so young, how a person whom he knew so little about could provide a clear mirror to what he was feeling. Vincent didn’t know what to do with that knowledge apart from having it add to the respect he’d developed for the individual next to him. All this, however, didn’t take away from what had brought him up here in the first place. The gunslinger didn’t know what to name it, for there was a coagulation of emotions roiling within him...simmering under his skin, colored with the fear that it was a window of opportunity for Chaos to emerge; it only took a lapse in his control, in his will.

It was onerous.

“We couldn’t have brought you here against your will, Mr. Valentine.” Leather-clad digits grabbed the cylindrical railing in front of them, but Hewley still kept his head bowed as he hurried onwards. “I’m sure you know this...as well as the fact that we would’ve never been able to find Ms. Crescent were it not for…” A pause, and the younger man’s hesitation in crediting his demonic form would have possibly brought the tiniest of smirks to his lips had their circumstances been different. “ _your_ help.” The sigh the swordsman heaved was followed by the creak of leather as the hand around the metal guardrail loosened and tightened its hold. “As for the Shinra Manor...You know that demolishing it wasn’t our call, and as a former Shinra employee we couldn’t simply leave you at their mercy considering the circumstances of the property they’d find you in.” A hand was raised between them as a gesture to hold any reply he might have had at bay, but Vincent didn’t have any...not externally at least. He could’ve scoffed, could’ve called it out that despite what they had made it look like, their goals for getting him out of there hadn’t been as selfless as they claimed…which was no surprise knowing the company and their ways, but the crimson-eyed man said nothing, did nothing but regard those sapphire eyes that finally rose to meet his impassively.

“The reasons behind what the company does are separate from mine. You might find it hard to believe, but bringing you to testify against Hojo, to whitewash what Shinra used to do isn’t why Veld and I asked you to come with us.”

As much as he might have wanted to find a hint of insincerity, the visage in front of him, the eyes boring into his were holding none. And logically, what could Hewley expect from him...what good would it do the younger man to lie to him about his motives? He wasn’t bound by anything this time around; his accedence to following them had been something volitional, and he hadn’t been persuaded so far to fall in line to serve a purpose...no one, not even Veld-despite his numerous verbally-expressed, enthusiastic comments about have him back in the fold-had made him sell his soul for yet another contract.

“Hojo will stand trial regardless of whether you’d testify against him or not. There’s enough condemning evidence for him to be found guilty, and the board fears him enough for them to move for capital punishment.” A gravid pause, and Hewley faced away, returned to clasping the balustrade. “As for him winning…” Shoulder-length ebony tresses swayed as the younger man shook his head. “I don’t know, I think we’re all losers in this game...some lose more than others, some less… And I’ve lost two of my closest friends to this war, Mr. Valentine. Affiliation with Shinra aside, it’s our duty as SOLDIER to protect people...or that’s what I tell- _told_ myself and my men.” Another intermission. “My _honor_ couldn’t condone leaving you behind there when I knew what befell my friends was waiting for you.”

There was so much pain behind that deep voice, and the extent of it was betrayed by how it trembled...how its owner lowered it so it’d be easier to control the minute vibrations that had given him away.

“I never agreed to this, and many other executives refused it, but as the sole survivor of the scientists working on the Jenova project...as Sephiroth’s...biological mother, they had to give her a choice.” This time, Vincent couldn’t repress the small downturn of his lips. “I won’t deny that Shinra has ulterior motives in complying with Ms. Crescent’s request, but you know as well as I do that opposing Administration headlong with such a claim wouldn’t get anyone anywhere…which is why I handed over my resignation today.”

His surprise was forefront, yet mutedly so. The ex-Turk didn’t comment on it, but he couldn’t help but distantly acknowledge that there was a feeling of fear there. And not because there was a probability that General Hewley would move away from the headquarters and the only other face he’d come to know would be gone, but because there was the distinct possibility that he’d be replaced by someone who wasn’t as deeply rooted in his beliefs...and every government who perhaps wanted to make amends and rebuild could use someone like raven-haired individual next to him. It was inane to want to save Shinra, or any government from corruption however, and that was why he kept quiet. Along with the fact that it wasn’t his place to offer any comments whatsoever.  
  
As much as he had seen glimpses of the younger man’s personality, or heard brief snippets of facets of his life, from his men, Vincent didn’t know the full extent of what had truly gone on in Hewley’s life...and at this rate, he’d possibly never know.

What he did know was that those eyes-that were again gazing at the horizon-reflected the pain he’d expected to see in Lucrecia’s eyes back in that padded cell...of a different kind, but a pain nonetheless; something saved for brethren perhaps.

It was onerous.

Facing away from the younger man, Vincent decided that he had no response for his arguments. Not because he disagreed with what had been uttered, no, because he didn’t. And not because he was holding back in terms of verbiage, either. This had given him a lot to think about, and his thoughts were already churning as he let the fiery hues of the setting sol be burned in his retinas; his crimson eyes weren’t seeing the tapestry of the dusk in front of him, he wasn’t appreciating it as one perhaps would.

The realization of that agony, the acknowledgement of other people’s suffering, and the fact that he could’ve prevented it, all those years ago-when Shinra was nowhere near the grotesque monstrosity of iron and steel it had become-lanced through his heart, tore at who he was, shredded it into ribbons and left him in tatters.

The gunman didn’t know what to do with himself...with the burden of that deep-seated guilt. Every minute he spent breathing, living, he would remember that he had the power to save thousands of people a world of hurt, and he hadn’t. He didn’t know what to do with himself, because no human should be given so much power, so much responsibility; and the realization that perhaps Sephiroth might have felt the same was another crushing blow.

The downward spiral he had been caught inside was never-ending, and maybe it was fitting… His absolution forever out of reach like the existential bottom he wanted to smash against, for him to never emerge from.

It was enough to bring any person to his knees, but Vincent Valentine stood where he was and crumbled inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of difficulty writing this chapter. Apparently, writing Vincent doesn't come easily to me but I hope, for what it's worth, I didn't botch him up too terribly. If I have, I hope you accept my sincerest apologies. I tried really hard to portray him, but I also realize that sometimes even our best efforts aren't enough. Same goes to editing and finding my typos for this chapter... I'll go back and try to fix as many as I can, but for now I'm more or less totally burnt out.
> 
> I think we have another chapter of terribleness like this one DX before the story takes a turn for the better.


	9. Chapter Nine

_‘Sephiroth’s biological mother’_

They were practically jogging through the brightly lit corridors of the Science Department, their entourage of infantrymen-or SOLDIER, the labels were mostly meaningless despite what Angeal seemed intent on drilling into his head-following them. He’d received a _‘Slow down, sir’_ followed tersely by a _‘Halt!’_ but when their orders had fallen on deaf ears, the men had decided simply to try and keep up pace...albeit failingly. He wasn’t taking orders from anyone, despite his previous title being forfeit and the new contract Shinra had offered him still hanging in the air due to Angeal laughing it off and turning it away on his behalf. Walking ahead of their group, with even the aforementioned ivory-haired man behind him, Genesis couldn’t help but notice that the double doors that marked Hojo’s lair were now under a different name…

_Lucrecia Crescent._

The name rang a bell… It’d be nice to put a face to a name.

_‘Sephiroth’s biological mother’_

That was all he could hear from the incessant gibberish his childhood friend was going on and on about, the drum of their feet a discordant symphony that added to the enervating atmosphere of the labs. It was fitting for her to be holed up in here, like another lie Shinra wanted to cover up...another dirty little secret that the public must never know about.

Forced to take the stairs because their sheer number couldn’t fit inside the lift that would take them down to the belly of the beast, Genesis dimly wondered why an escort of such magnitude was necessary. The thought would’ve brought a ghost of a smirk to his lips in other circumstances because _of course,_ they had to be afraid; even without his weapon, the scientist would be no match for him...her being a woman notwithstanding. His only true challenge would be Angeal...and it wasn’t something he could overlook, not really.

Lower, and for some reason, it felt like the bottom of his stomach had dropped, but why he couldn’t tell…

…until it was too late.

The brunette was typing furiously, working on whatever she’d been doing when they’d arrived and not at all raising her head from where the light from the screen was illuminating her visage, when she uttered somewhat absentmindedly. “General Hewley, I’m glad you agreed to come help wit-”

“-That’s not why we’re here.” Angeal corrected, coming to stand beside him before stepping forward; from his peripheral vision to some place more forefront but Genesis wasn’t looking. Not even when he repeated, his tone beseeching a belief that was running fast like sand through a broken hourglass. “That’s not why we’re here, Gen.”

Finally deciding to grace them with her attention, _Lucrecia Crescent_ raised her head to regard them but mostly his ivory-haired best friend… It was possibly for the best, because the redhead had forgotten how to breathe, how to blink…The knowledge of how he must have looked on the outside for that virulent sense of alarm to come from his companion’s direction was lost on him. The tension in his limbs had frozen so rigid that if Angeal decided to run him through with Buster Sword, Genesis wouldn’t bleed.

“I’m sorry… I must have been misinformed-” There was a pause, but time had run out for all of them.

Because in front of him, in that hexagonal glass chamber, was Sephiroth...but he wasn’t. Eerie, like all the times he had fought the simulation of the silver-haired man in the training room. The moonspun tresses were there, the emerald irises, the same face...everything, but it wasn’t the man he’d come to know as Sephiroth. Something was so horribly and irrevocably wrong…missing. Maybe it was in the way those beryl eyes were dispassionately regarding all that was unfolding on this side of the glass, the hollow lurking within their depths; or perhaps how it was so impossibly different from the last time he had seen the youngest of their trio in person...how Genesis knew that pale mouth would subtly quirk upwards in-...

_...an effortlessly mesmerizing smile…_

…-the lips that were so unmoving they seemed numb...just as numb as he felt, up until his azure eyes found the barely there number, etched onto porcelain skin…

_124_

The yell that ripped itself out of his throat was something he hadn’t heard himself utter in a long, _long_ time. Nor had he felt the sudden, instantaneous insurge of so much magic, and maybe it was fitting that he’d-

_Be the only one match that could burn this whole thing down_

-burn this godforsaken place and bury all of them here. No more of this mockery, no more dirty secrets hidden in the shadows, no more lies, no more torture, no more _pain…_

Genesis was drowning in an ocean of agony fueling the inferno of his rage.

No more _betrayal…_

He hit the brick wall that was Angeal.

Strong fingers laced with his own, calloused palms flush against his before the older man wrenched his hands away. Genesis tried to side-step, to get away and reach his focus only to be thwarted at every turn. Behind the younger man, _Lucrecia Crescent_ stood in front of the glass chamber, as though her frail form could be a match for the spell he’d been about to unleash.

Another shout drowned his ivory-haired _friend_ ’s words before those callused hands came to cup his visage, a pair of sapphire eyes suddenly all that filled his vision-

“-Genesis, _breathe!_ Calm down-”

But he couldn’t breathe, and he _could not_ calm down, not until he was bathing in _Lucrecia Crescent’s_ blood and-

His hysteria was etched inside azure irises as they flitted to that one-hundred-mile stare.

-that of her experiment.

It didn’t help.

His eyes reverted to those of the individual before him.

It wouldn’t do. He couldn’t dive in headfirst and without any plans...especially not with Angeal in his way. The younger man wasn’t moving away, and he wasn’t letting Genesis go. They would never let him anywhere near this place after today, and so today was the only chance he got.

Closing his eyes, he tried his damnedest to bring his anguish and his ire to a simmer right underneath his skin… It was hard not to give in; when his focus was so singular, when his target- _targets_ -were so within reach. It wasn’t Angeal and his voice that kept telling him to breathe that helped him, nor was it closing his eyes for those few ephemeral moments, no.

Sheer will.

“I’m calm, just-!” Had to exhale explosively through his nose before he opened pale eyelids to regard the individual before him. “ _Why?_ How could _you?_ ” He didn’t elaborate, because he couldn’t. He’d run his reservoir of words dry, and if he exhausted it one locution more, he was bound to fly into a rage and all his efforts would be for naught.

He would wait...shedding chip after agonizing chip of what remained of him, held in place by the hands of the person who claimed to be his friend, and yet, falling apart nonetheless.

He would wait.

After all, all things come to he who waits.

“I didn’t, Genesis, by Goddess, I didn’t...” Pain laced his childhood friend’s voice, but Genesis couldn’t feel any of it, drenched in it as he already was...ready to catch fire. “Have you seen Buster Sword? Did you ever ask where it was when I never separate it from myself?” A shake, and he went with it. “I _failed._ You, myself, my honor...even Seph-”

“Don’t you dare say his name when you turned tail like a _pissant_ instead of tearing this shithole to pieces!” The distance he put between the two of them could never be more analogous of the wedge driven into their friendship.

“I thought-...”

“- _Don’t you dare Angeal._ ” The redhead warned.

“They-”

Pale lips pressed into a thin line subtly quirked downwards at the corners before their seam came undone again. “If our friendship means anything to you, _just-_!shut the fuck up-”

An ivory-wreathed head turned away, his _friend_ apparently deciding to use his head, and therefore, his right to remain silent. But that silence, that infinitesimal lull didn’t last-

“-you can help him retain his memories,” It was _Lucrecia_ ’s voice…talking as if it was the real Sephiroth...as if this was a simple case of amnesia...those memories he so cherished perceived so worthless, brought so low as to be used for her scientific purposes...“And he can help you… with your grief.”

If the very air around him rippled with the heat of his rage, with the strength of it intertwined with his spell, Genesis wouldn’t be surprised at all. Too hot, like he was on fire, and the kiai that escaped his lips as he leaped-no, _lunged_ -forward wasn’t really voluntary.

The realization that he could’ve perhaps chosen other approaches dawned on him only when he saw the widening of those sapphire eyes, and immediately felt a multitude of sharp pin pricks in his back and arms…

Instead of slumping against that broad chest, he could’ve slumped against the nearest wall and stared unseeingly as his whole world came crashing down around his ears. He could’ve simply chosen to walk away, could’ve turned tail and pretended all his life to have never laid eyes on this ugly lie-and the comparison his mind was bringing up wasn’t helpful…

It wasn’t Sephiroth. That was what he kept hearing in his head. What he told himself; that it wasn’t Sephiroth. That he wouldn’t have been killing Sephiroth, that it wouldn’t be walking away from him… It wouldn’t be like seeing the silver-haired man for the first time in the labs; it would hold no place within him, no place among his memories. Him walking away wouldn’t amount to anything, wouldn’t make that imposter feel anything; not only because that was all it was…an imposter, a copy…a shell, but because in Genesis’ eyes it was nothing.

His eyes locked with those behind the thick pane of glass.

Time seemed to have come to a standstill.

The high of his adrenaline crashed, the fire of his rage doused by the flood of ketamine in his veins, and Angeal was still holding him through it...a strong arm held firmly around his waist, digits carding through his hair before coming to support his head…

Angeal was saying something, and he wanted to be able to hear it, to read the emotion in those eyes, but he was tired…

Emerald green smeared out of his vision, replaced by lapis lazuli of Banora sky as he was being lowered, and Genesis wanted…

 

Home.    

He wanted to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter brought to you after pulling an allnighter because the idea simply wouldn't let me sleep. I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, it was a tough write when I was mulling it over in my head but not so much when I actually began... We'll see how I'd actually feel when I'm remotely cognizant and rereading this tomorrow (and noticing my horrendous typos *is promptly mortified*). On the plus side, from here on out things will start to get better, so I guess that's something.
> 
> Another note on this chapter is that what SE did to Sephiroth in their FFVII remake teaser was an inspiration for this, though I'm not saying that it was my sole reason.


	10. Chapter Ten

It had been raining nonstop during the week.

Standing by the window and exhaling the smoke of yet another cigarette through his nose, he averted his gaze from the nubilous welkin above to the wooden sill upon which sat an overflowing ashtray and a bottomless tumbler of brandy.

It had let up for now, but it was nowhere near the end of it. Regardless, it suited his mood-or lack thereof-just fine. What he couldn’t understand was why they had to come to Banora-of all places on Gaia-during the monsoon season.

When he wanted to actually think about it, however, he knew the reason. There were just facets to the situation that he had trouble piecing together.

“I think you’d better stop now.” was the kind-hearted remark. “You’ve turned yourself and the house into a chimney and me into smoked fish.” In another world, at another time, he would’ve been hard-pressed not to grin at the jovial statement, or at the very least, smiling brightly… Now, he just acquiesced. No words, no expressions. Just extinguished the cigarette. It was almost finished anyway.

It took his fingers some time to leave the stub there and cradle the glass instead. Knocking the rest of his drink back, he looked over his shoulder at the reason he was where he was and not somewhere else. He didn’t know where that’d be, but it was a moot point now...because Angeal had drugged him, dragged him all the way here, and promptly made himself scarce for the past several days.

His eyes landed on Buster Sword which was-and had been-lodged into its customary scotch in the ground.

_“That sword is our family’s pride-”_

Gillian’s face had been the first thing he’d seen upon awakening. While he had been disoriented, she’d made sure to slowly explain where he had been. While he had been panicking spectacularly, she’d made sure to soothe him like she used to when they’d only been little boys, made sure to keep him grounded to the here and now by her gentle yet callused hands.

It had been nothing like old times.

Sure, he hadn’t lost his shit as he otherwise would have, but it was there...lurking in the shadows; his sanity was hanging by a thread, and it was only for Gillian’s sake that that thread hadn’t snapped already. To the aforementioned woman’s credit, she hadn’t asked anything, hadn’t made any attempts toward getting him to open up or make any sort of small talk; not that she ever did. She was giving him as wide a berth as she and her homely chalet could provide...but that didn’t mean she was ignorant, that she was uncaring. Those grey irises were as observant as they’d always been. Genesis’ defenses had been up all the way, however. It was a state of unwilling cohabitation...

He would have preferred his first time at the Hewley’s after all these years to have been in better circumstances. As better as it could...which was probably not by much.

He hadn’t left the house at all. The first few days he’d spent confining himself to the parameters of Angeal’s bedroom and resenting every waking moment, every breath, everything. When he’d been comfortable stepping over the threshold into the living room, he’d been content to watch life go on around him from within the wooden frames of the same window he was standing behind now. Because while he was alive, while he was breathing...he preferred to have been dead, to have died on that fateful day; or if not then, to have died over and over and over again, and again, and again during-...

_Pain._

His whole life was wrought from it, physical, mental… It didn’t make much of a difference if you took out the acuteness of it aside, if you took the nuances of the locutions used to differentiate them from one another. Pain was pain, be it inflicted by his parents- **_foster parents_ ** -or by _them_. Maybe it was the single veritable fact about human-

-He was _not_ **human** -

_-more pain-_

“ _-Genesis!_ ” It wasn’t the distress coloring her tone that pierced through the fog of his thoughts, or maybe it was. Maybe it was the shard digging into the palm of his hand, but it didn’t matter, not anymore at least. The hand at the small of his back was both tentative and steady at once, nudging him toward the sink; Gillian the picture of patience, as always. It made him grit his teeth, the force with which he was clenching his jaws making them hurt because he couldn’t stop that train of thought about who Angeal had taken after in terms of being so forbearing.

The acoustic of water rushing through the pipes was a discordant cacophony before it made its way to the faucet.

_Cool._

_Tainted by crimson as it welled in the basin before going down the drain._

“Now, now, open your fist so we can get those nasty shards out.”

Azure irises made a slow trek from where Gillian’s calloused fingers cradled his hand to her visage as she urged him to comply yet again.

“Come on now.”

It was as though he was seeing her for the first time during the past several days. World-weary lines were etched into her kind-hearted face, her salt-and-pepper hair now much more like that of her son… It was wrong, not seeing how she had aged so much, but it wasn’t as wrong or as bizarre as Angeal had. So maybe it was his bemusement, or perhaps something within him relented that Gillian finally managed to prise his fingers open one by one...plucked those shards out from where they had lodged themselves as carefully as she could… Somehow, they ended up sitting behind the only table inside her home with a first aid kit, and she made a studious task of bandaging his hand even though she _knew_ that he could heal it if he wanted; that it’d _heal_ on its own regardless.

“Whe-” It took him a few tries before he could actually speak, his voice rough from disuse. “Where is he?”

Busying herself with putting the items she had used back in place, Gillian didn’t reply, and for some reason, he couldn’t help but get the impression that she was not only evading the question but also avoiding his gaze.

Looking at his bandaged hand while he flexed it and unflexed it a few times, the redhead averted his gaze to Mrs. Hewley’s retreating back. It was strange, referring to her on a last name basis…bizarre even… And then, all of a sudden, Genesis decided that perhaps, just as he had left the bedroom, it was probably time for him to leave the house.

He couldn’t shrug off the heavy-and quite unexpected-cloak of disappointment, of despair that weighed him down as he stood up and made his way toward the wooden door; gazing at the pride of Hewley’s family for a long moment as he did and reminisced about that time he’d asked Angeal why he didn’t put it on a stand.

_“I couldn’t ask my parents for something like that after they had just given me a sword.”_

The downturn of his lips was involuntary, but-...

“He said you’d know.”

Glancing over his shoulder and through a fringe of auburn tresses, Genesis nodded slowly, and it was many things all at once. He wasn’t sure if all of them were conveyed, but as he closed the aperture-upon which hung a wreath of dried wild flowers-behind himself, he didn’t see the somber smile on Gillian’s lips.

* * *

It didn’t take him long at all to find his best friend’s hiding spot, but it had felt otherwise walking through the cobblestoned pathways of the small town.

Genesis hadn’t expected them not to have noticed his presence during the week he’d stood watch framed by the wooden window, but it had delayed the Rhapsodos’ inevitable swoop long enough just fine. Walking among the people, however, was a surefire way to summon them as quickly as he could call on the very Ifrit himself.

He wasn’t expecting their presence, wasn’t expecting them to come looking for him, not really, but that was a story for another day. And while he could tell himself that he didn’t care, a distant yet insidious voice was cautioning him otherwise.

Regardless, he needed to get _this_ out of the way…there was a very high probability that he was required to lie in some bed, but whether it was of his own making or of others, Genesis didn’t know. What he did know was that he had to do it before he could deal with yet another clusterfuck of catastrophic proportions. Which was why he was standing at the edge of a cliff awaiting his quarry with two bottles of as strong a liquor as his earring could buy.

Angeal wasn’t there.

Indeed, _‘there’_ was a place he’d known, their favorite haunt as childhood friends in fact. The twinge of nostalgia that came with that knowledge was overshadowed by a muted thrill, the ghost of the times he did reconnaissance back at Wutai war, and the rush of adrenaline when he’d found the younger man’s campsite. But that didn’t change the fact that the bittersweet feeling was still there.

A military issue tent that housed a sleeping bag-cold, hours now. The firepit, however, was what piqued his interest; specifically the residual magic left from the elemental spell. It was due to the rain, of course, same with the waterproof rucksack that housed some clothes and rations. So, Angeal either ought to have left most of his belongings at HQ or left them in the rundown shed at the back of the house. The former probability opened up a whole new variety of possibilities; because perhaps the ivory-haired man wasn’t here to stay…maybe his resignation was something temporary until the situation that had called for it was resolved in one way or another. Regardless, his mind didn’t dawdle on those speculations for too long…

And he was indeed standing there for a long time, for as long as he could; until it was almost painful to stand upright, so he sat. Long enough that his brain moved from being a totally blank slate to wondering whether his quarry would ever show up or not...and then he did.

The rustle of the bushes gave him away, but whether it was something Angeal had intended or not, Genesis didn’t know.

“Genesis.”

And he didn’t care, not at this point.

He didn’t turn to acknowledge the younger man, at all, simply raised his bottle to drink straight from its neck. He was too far gone to differentiate between the possible reasons for the grimace that twisted his lips but not enough to forget about this when tomorrow came. A part of him wished that the world ended before another day could go by, but that was but a fool’s hope...and he no longer had the luxury of thinking that way.

“Speak.” He demanded hoarsely yet quietly over his shoulder. “Start from the beginning.”

A moment passed and then another. It seemed that at this rate, both of them had a lot of time to spare...a lot of time to _kill._ It suited him just fine; it wasn’t like he had anything better to do but stare at the horizon where the nebulous sky met the steely line of the ocean.

Finally, there was a rustle of fabric, the sense of forward motion… _Weary_ , Angeal seemed weary as he made his way toward the spot Genesis had been occupying on the boulder they had sat upon many a time before; down, next to him, and the knee-jerk urge to lean his head on the younger man’s shoulder like the redhead had every once in a while back then cut across the haze in his mind. Something ripped, much akin to a tapestry, and behind its tattered edges Genesis could catch glimpses of something but he couldn’t face it now...so, he let alcohol cloud up the arena of his psych even more.

“When you went missing that day, Shinra was quick to declare you MIA…” There was a gravid pause, before Angeal heaved a sigh and continued. “Well, they were quick to move for announcing you KIA, but Sephiroth and I…we…we went for broke, nearly broke ranks to get the board veto President’s order and _he…_ he literally struggled for all he was worth to keep it that way until we could find you alongside the war effort. Nobody thought to rework the strategies, plans, nothing, because when the board wasn’t bickering over gil, they were bickering over why it was taking us so long when we were up to our knees in blood at the front.” In his peripheral vision, Angeal rubbed his face a couple of times, exhaling rather loudly as he did. “It was after a particular messy fight that the tables were turned…but we didn’t suspect it until it was too late.”

“The ambush.” Genesis whispered to the ether, looking away toward the vacant side of him at nothing in particular.

“No one sur-...”

“ _Get on with it!_ ” issued through gritted teeth, it was the first time he was making any direct eye contact with the ivory-haired man whose expression was nothing short of agonized. But the reason behind it kept slipping through his grasp and into the recesses of his mind.

“I don’t know the specifics of what happened, I _told_ you, I wasn’t _there_ , but we got there when it was pretty much over. We looked _everywhere,_ _no one_ spared any effort but we couldn’t find Sephiroth. When the General of the Crescent unit finally came out with the claim that he was the one whom Sephiroth had seen last, Wutai was already halfway inside the Western continent.”

At this, Genesis could no longer remain sitting where he was, but Angeal was already continuing, and he damn right had to because the redhead had asked.

Apparently, it was in a bed of his own making that he had to lie.

“I tried to keep the front with Zack, but they seemed to know everything. The number of men, the weapons in every stronghold...they had built them, so infiltration was plain sailing when they held all the cards. They pushed us back, encampment after encampment, and then, they decided not to stop at Wutai when they had it all restored. By that time, we were all tripping over each other trying to pull SOLDIER and infantry into some semblance of order so we could just hold them back.”

The gravity of the situation was just sinking in, but did he feel any remorse? His mind was sluggishly putting the scattered puzzle pieces together… And now it made sense…the couple wearing Wutain garb walking freely in Costa Del Sol… It had been strange at the time, but the significance of it had been lost on him up until now. Pivoting on his heel, Genesis ran a hand through his hair before uttering quietly, urgently. “Where is it now? The Wutain border?” Something within him was pleading silently for Angeal to say that they had managed to push them back...not because he had any loyalties to Shinra, not because he felt necessarily patriotic, but because this wasn’t something he was prepared to accept...he couldn’t face the consequences of such magnitude...he couldn’t deal with the knowledge that all the years he’d lost and all the sweat and blood they’d shed had been all in vain…and more importantly Sephiroth’s-...

“-the middle of Gunasamigla ocean. The entire Western continent is theirs.” It wasn’t at all dissimilar to being physically hit, like being thrown down on the ground when you least expected it. Winded, Genesis could do nothing but stare as Angeal slowly rose to his feet. “They brought Leviathan in, and without you, without Sephiroth, and with me-” a vague gesture with his hands toward himself. “-being like this, it took Sister Ray to bring it down. But,” another infinitesimal yet no less gravid pause. “It took the whole cannon down with itself.”

There were a myriad of questions floating in his head, but Genesis didn’t know where to start, didn’t think if he managed to open his mouth he’d accomplish anything but, possibly, looking dumb. He wasn’t left to his thoughts for too long however, because the ivory-haired individual before him turned to face him then; and it was a cautious, weary thing, as though Angeal feared turning on his heel any faster would somehow unbalance their already tenuous rapport.

“They made President Shinra sign a peace treaty and an abdication order.” Sapphire eyes were still avoiding him when something within the redhead whispered _‘Good’_ , but that righteous flicker was quickly extinguished by the coagulation that was his inner turmoil. “No one cared about the Northern continent, so they left it as it was. In the South, though, your father-”

“-foster.” Genesis ground it out and it came out hushed, because only just now he’d found his voice, found some way to _breathe_.

Angeal look flummoxed for the duration of an entire minute before he managed to compose himself enough to speak. “He found it high time that he declare independence; Wutai moved in his favor, ‘liberated’ them from Shinra’s rule-”

The redhead couldn’t resist the urge to scoff.

“-They seemed to have had enough by then to leave Mideel alone. Your fa-”

“ _-foster_ _father._ ” Genesis warned, and Angeal looked somewhat apologetic before continuing.

“Yes, sorry, he’s the governor now.”

There was a lull in the younger man’s explanations within which both of them were gathering their thoughts. It was too much...too much to take in all at once, and somehow, the first coherent thought that made its way to the forefront of his brain was why and how Angeal had been able to keep this from him for so long. Unable to really dwell on any of these, Genesis opened his mouth only for both of them to utter the same query at once.

““How?””

Deciding not to acknowledge the unvoiced remainder of the question, the redhead made a gesture with his hand. Thankfully, the younger man was quick on the uptake.

“How what?” The dismissive expression fleeting across Angeal’s features was a rare sight. “How I ended up looking like this?”

Genesis could only nod hesitatingly, suddenly unsure if he really wanted to hear the answer to that.

“It’s noth-” The ivory-haired man abruptly cut himself off. It was even more bizarre when those broad shoulders hunched forward, the individual in front of him turning on his heel in order to-wearily-make his way back to where they’d been sitting only minutes ago.

It felt like hours, like ages that they’d been stuck up here, separate from the rest of the world as they had always been, down to their very definitions…down to their very origins. Outside, down below, life was going on as it always did, but here, now, the very sky was crumbling around their ears.

Pressing his lips into a thin line, Genesis abruptly looked up…his gaze piercing as he tried to contain his sudden onset of rage, as he willed away the urge to place all blames on some higher power who just sat in their lofty heavensward perch…

A droplet spattered against his visage. Then another, and another one again…

_Why did it feel though, that the goddess herself was laughing at them?_

“That fight at Fort Nonneung… I got wounded… _Hell_ , even Sephiroth was more worse for wear than he’s always.” There was a gravid pause. “It didn’t heal…” When Angeal continued anew, there was a strange emotion coloring his tone… _Was it regret?_ “After the battle, after securing the fort, he left me there to hold it and advanced further ahead. No one knows whom they attacked first, maybe it was us, maybe they flanked Sephiroth from behind before closing in on us…” An overloud yet tremulous exhale. “Goddess knows how many times I wished it was Sephiroth who got wounded that day…even though it didn’t heal, even though it got me where I am but he’d at least be ali-!”

-they were rolling on the ground the next instance, Angeal’s temporary stupefaction working in Genesis’ favor as the redhead tackled him to the ground, hands gripping the younger man’s collar so hard they were shaking.

In those infinitesimal moments that he deliberated on what to do, the tense silence between them was filled with their heavy breaths and the lazy pitter-patter of rain. Azure irises were locked with wide yet pain-laced sapphire ones; and Genesis was tired of seeing that look, wanted to wipe it away, but how…

Maybe it was too much to ask. Maybe neither of them had the luxury of being _normal_ again…not that they ever had.

_Normal._

The sneer that contorted his visage had nothing to do with the man below him as he slowly lowered his head. To his credit, Angeal didn’t flinch away, followed his movement with his eyes- _worried_ , but that was nothing new considering the ivory-haired man-until they were only a couple of inches apart.

“Don’t you _dare_ utter his name when you gave that mockery of him a chance to breathe.” This the redhead hissed, and when his companion was about to reply, Genesis cut him off, his voice rising in volume. “You say you wish Sephiroth was wounded instead of you so he’d live…” There was a multitude of things he could do, but he decided to spit next to the younger man’s head before abruptly rising to his feet and throwing venomously over his shoulder; “ _Bullshit-_ ”

“-We had to fight a group of them when we went down to retrieve Hojo! I had to _kill_ half a dozen men wearing my friend’s face… No simulation, real flesh and blood… Can you even _imagine_ how that feels like _Gen?_ And his-possible biological-father was there, right next to me, cutting down versions of a son he’d never met only for Ms. Crescent to come between us and Hojo...just so she could preserve the only one left.” Now _this, this_ made him freeze in his tracks; made him turn around and level the younger man behind him with a look that was potentially bordering on the wrong end of unhinged at the moment. “It was torture! Dealing with Hojo only to end up having to spare that copy was torture, more so for Valentine, but he tried reasoning with her… And believe me, if there was anyone who could’ve changed her mind, it’d have been him.”

Too much… It was too much. Frozen as they’d been, facing each other and staring down one another, it seemed like they had finally run their verbiage dry. There was no use pushing his point because Angeal’s viewpoint seemed forever skewed…forever blind to those glaring holes in the dogma, to those pitfalls…It was obvious that there was more to this when it came to Shinra being so lenient with a shadow of-what amounted to-their perfect weapon living and breathing within their very bowels… A dirty little secret…just as they had been.

The bed they’d made for him was only disguised as one… It was actually his coffin. _So be it._

“あなたは私が死ぬのを眺めた…” It was whispered, more like a thought spoken out loud but there nonetheless. Genesis repeated it once more, holding the younger man’s gaze with his own.

A severe frown, an intense focus. This, at least, he could contend with, finally seeing that look gone from those sapphire eyes. No more morose silences, no more hunched shoulders, and no more pain.

_Good._

“よう 相棒” Opened his arms wide because this was finally the Angeal he’d come to know. However, the expression that gradually pulled on his lips next was unnameable, because while it resembled a smile, there was no mirth behind it… Ugly, it was an ugly scar, an unhealed and festering wound…opening up and spilling pus. “結構。ついに心を決めたというわけだ” The bewilderment, the confusion on the younger man’s visage was something bitter, but Angeal had already chosen, and so would he. “幼なじみの意思は尊重しよう、しかし…” Slowly but surely, Genesis turned his back on the one whom he used to call his _brother, his best friend,_ uttering over his shoulder before stepping into the treeline. “そっちの世界で生きていけるのと？”

He’d drink his cup to the lees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> あなたは私が死ぬのを眺めた = You watched me die  
> "よう 相棒。結構。ついに心を決めたというわけだ。幼なじみの意思は尊重しよう、しかし…そっちの世界で生きていけるのと？" = Hey partner. Good. So it means your heart is decided. As childhood friends I respect your choice. However, can you live in that kind of world? (This is a direct dialogue from Crisis Core, and I don't own it.)
> 
> * * *
> 
> Well, apart from the usual 'pulling an allnighter' and lots of typos, I wanted to apologize for the delay. Was working on my thesis and finally handed it over. I'm sorry if this chapter was possibly bleak and overloaded with lots of info, but it had to happen sooner or later... Hopefully it was, if not a somewhat enjoyable read, a decent one at least. Thank y'all for sticking around.


	11. Chapter Eleven

Dank.

The sublevels of Shinra mansion were always dark, cold and damp. His memory of these corridors, the halls, the rooms...it was both impeccable and yet in tatters at the same time. Impeccable in the sense that he could remember the layout, how the furniture was placed...how many mako tubes there were, how many coffins housing failed experiments… But these were all compartmentalized statistical facets, as though seen through the lens of an emotionless machine… What he retained of his life there as Vincent Valentine was only snippets, images, clips cut from silent film…haloed with feelings that now felt forever out of reach.  


It was with resolution, however, that he walked down the dark corridor, not paying the brick walls on either side of him any mind. His footfalls didn’t ricochet off them like they usually did now, but it wasn’t of any significance whatsoever. Perhaps it was due to the fear that he might end up not seeing this through; that his bravado might give out were he to deviate from his singular focus.

Hojo.

The sable-haired Turk found the scientist on his way to the main basement lab. A displeased sideways glance was all the acknowledgement he was given, and the usual sneer that never left the bespectacled man’s lips.  


Time seemed to stretch on the pathways of chronology as Vincent’s mind went through his possible veins of approach, as he deliberated. Before the window of opportunity he was given could close in his face forever, his arm rose to grip a white-clad shoulder and pushed Hojo backwards so they’d be face to face when the Turk spat. “What’s happening to Lucrecia?”

What he hadn’t noticed, so forefront his focus had been on confronting Hojo and getting some answers, was the glint of something metallic in the aforementioned man’s pocket. It could’ve been a vial, a syringe… But it was actually the grip of a gun.

Those dark eyes that had followed his line of sight were making their usual examination of him, the same downward look, the disdain in them so visible that it ate away at his courage; that it made him hesitate to pull out his weapon; that it made him  _ angry _ …

But not anymore.  


_ I’m not the Vincent you knew. _

In a split second, his standard issue gun was out between the two of them. “ _ Talk! _ Why did you let this happen?” But then, something shifted, like the ground they were standing on was precariously balanced on the tip of a needle. It tilted...and yet, they were standing as they had been…but not anymore.

The first thing that alarmed him was the eerie expression on Hojo’s face. Amused...as though he was holding a water gun, and not a firearm…but it wasn’t that. Those dark eyes were not looking at him but at some point behind his shoulder…  


It was clearly a ploy, the easiest trick in the book, to get him to turn his back to-what counted as-his enemy. Standing his ground and refusing to give in to the pins-and-needles sensation of something- _ someone _ -actually being behind him; to the trepidation that was suddenly slithering in the pit of his stomach, it was just then that Vincent heard the muted click-clack of heels...refused to believe the auditory knowledge until he caught a movement in his peripheral vision, and…  


Their world turned upside down.

At the other end of his three-barrelled gun, Lucrecia was slowly coming to a stop behind Hojo, and behind the both of them was not the basement of Shinra mansion but a series of mostly empty mako tubes lining the wall of a room in the Science Department.

It was then that Vincent realized he was reliving not only a memory but also a nightmare.

Blood and pain, he remembered them well from that day. Neither were directed at his immediate physical condition because he wasn’t injured and the blood wasn’t his… Thick, black, already coagulating where it dyed the otherwise sterile and brightly-lit corridor behind them. From his knowledge, Hewley should be there with him, behind him, but he had never felt so alone…Had never been bothered by the notion; and maybe it wasn't that but the betrayal of Lucrecia siding with Hojo after all these years…again.

And for what, in order to protect the sole remainder of more gruesome experiments at the hands of a madman whose egotism knew no bounds?  


He’d rather she had torn the materia housed in his chest out along with his heart…  


“Lucrecia…Why…?”

Hazel irises weren’t meeting his rubicund; her heart-shaped visage was obscured by her chestnut bangs that resembled that of the individual behind her, floating in a glass container filled with mako...the face that was reminiscent of the many copies they had put to death only to get here…back at where it all had started…back where it’d all end.

Cerberus was being incrementally lowered, of its own accord, and he could do nothing, trapped in a body that was his and yet not, much akin to when Chaos took over and he had to take ‘the backseat’-

“ _ -Silence!- _ ” Hojo spat-

-a gunshot-

* * *

-Vincent jolted awake.

The television was on, like many a night before, throwing the room in sharp relief with the light that was emanating from it.  


There was nothing out of the ordinary about his small efficiency, a rental which he paid for by doing this and that, here and there. That was what he’d been doing for the majority of the past two and a half years, helping around the towns he’d been to on his journey. It didn’t mean he’d exchanged a life of solitude and quiet for being unduly social, or constantly meeting new people from town to town. No, not at all. His appearance alone was enough to guarantee that not many dared to approach him, and the rest were thrown off by his perpetual, stoic ‘guard’. The only people he’d had to correspond with had been the owners of the places he’d stayed at and those whom his skill set had been of use to; local law enforcement, those involved in keeping towns safe from monsters, and in some places...game providers.

It had been hard at first, putting aside the memories he associated with hunting; the good, old times when his father was just Papa and not Professor Grimoire Valentine; when he hadn’t decided to join the up-and-coming monopolizing company that was rumored to have a ‘bright’ future.

_ ‘Another sleepless night.’ _ He told himself inwardly, looking down at sweat soaked sheets beneath his feet. Leaning against the farmhouse-style, wrought-iron headboard, the breeze that filtered through the slightly ajar window was cool against his skin, gradually drying his drenched garments while he deliberated on what to do now that slumber was as elusive as ever.  


The first thing on his mental to-do list was to turn off the telly. He didn’t watch it, not really; it wasn’t like there was anything going on in the world at the moment, and even if there was, he wasn’t interested. A source of background noise, something that made the hustle and bustle of people less jarring for his ever churning mind...that’s what the television was, his scapegoat earlier in his stay for not hearing- _ and not answering _ -madam landlady’s knocking on his door-which had, thankfully, finally stopped-so she could check up on him if he needed anything.

A shower, and a change of garments into his nondescript everyday outfit later, his crimson eyes fell on his attire that was peeking at him through the open zipper of his rucksack; courtesy of Angeal Hewley, along with the cell phone that was collecting dust next to it. When the younger man had gotten wind of his decision about crossing the border, he had insisted on him taking those items, along with a few pairs of clothes, and some cash; which Vincent had so adamantly refused until the sapphire-eyed Soldier had promised to come find him and take it back- _ interest included, _ as Hewley had joked.  


Flipping the sleek black device open, it was one of the few things in this world that brought a subtle smile to his lips that was equally contented and somber: the thread of the messages Hewley had sent him many a month ago and Veld’s persistent queries about his whereabouts and the state of his mind regarding a possible future occupation in Shinra. Despite his lack of use, he kept the cell phone on his person for some reason-force of habit maybe; perhaps it was for the same reason he’d decided to forgo his outfit of leather and kevlar and to just take Cerberus with himself.

Maybe he was trying to put his past life behind while not doing so entirely. That was probably it, for why else had he started his trek across the Western Continent two and a half years ago? His first destination had been Nibelheim. The many trails he had hiked with his Papa were still there, the tundra where he had taught him hunting, the one they had frequented every once in a blue moon… But it was different now, tainted like a watercolor painting splashed with stygian ink. Standing where their own house-their family heirloom-once used to be, where Shinra Mansion used to be and being faced with nothing, Vincent couldn’t help but find the small town bereft of that which had once made it both heaven and hell. Heaven, because it used to be his hometown, and hell, because of Shinra, because of Hojo…because of-

His feet that had taken him to the cenotaph of their own accord stopped in their long strides; carmine eyes zeroed in on the back of a dark-haired individual who was standing where Vincent hadn’t expected him to.  


The aforementioned memorial was a fenced off section on a lush hill in Gongaga, marked by many grapevine crosses in memory of the many lives lost during the battle of Nashimakonai. Or so he’d been told by the crowd that had gathered the day it had been first established. One of the families that had also lost all their children to the war, an old couple, had explained to him that it had taken so long to erect this place because unlike everything Wutai had been lenient about, they didn’t want people to have something they could draw strength from...that it wasn’t just a cemetery for bodies that had never been returned to their families.  


Vincent hadn’t been able to see it that way, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to. Because not only had he been outliving a son he’d never had, that he’d never  _ seen _ , but he’d also been forced to decapitate copies that had been created in his image; he’d been the one who’d been unable to pull the trigger because the woman he’d once loved had stood between him and the originator of all their pain and suffering in order to save the only copy that was left.

Hewley had told him that didn’t make him a coward at all, but the crimson-eyed ex-Turk hadn’t been able to be convinced of it.

That didn’t change the fact, however, that the spiky-haired lad following Hewley around was here, standing next to the grapevine cross Vincent had driven into the ground in memory of his lost son.  


Maybe he’d done it for closure, because why else did he secret away any facet of information he could glean about the silver-haired General?

The younger man saluted, just about to pivot on his heel when Vincent finally opened his mouth.

“Did you know him?”

It gave the blue-eyed ex-Soldier a jump, subtle and unnoticeable to an untrained eye but there nonetheless. It made him wonder, like many other totally irrelevant occasions, that he was perhaps more of a shadow than he’d have liked…a remnant of his past self, a Turk.

“Mr…” There was an infinitesimal pause, but whether it was due to the younger man forgetting his name or trying to come up with a reason for him being here of all places, the gunslinger didn’t know. “Valentine?!”

His answer was all but an almost imperceptible nod as he closed the remaining distance between where his feet had stopped and the plaque that had his son’s name engraved on it.

It didn’t seem like he could ever reach closure...because how could one move on from this...grief?

Fair came to stand behind him before finally answering his initial query. “If I said I knew him I’d be lying, sir-“

“-There’s no need to call me that.” He amended quietly, and the brief lull that followed was stifling...a vacuum.

“He was closer to Angeal-Hewley, and former Commander, Genesis Rhapsodos whom I assume you know.” Another intermission, and there was a rustle of clothes before the younger man continued. “I’d confidently say I knew some of the other names here more than I knew the General...he was a private man, he…” Fair trailed off, and it was hard to dismiss the impression that he was unsure of what he wanted to say. Glancing at the spiky-haired ex-Soldier, Vincent caught him averting his gaze and scratching his head before he muttered to the grass underneath their boots. “If I daresay, he was much like yourself in demeanor. Many respected him, many were afraid of him...he had that kind of presence, y’know, turned heads, but he was a good man...many of the men I knew aspired to be like him or be as near to him as Angeal and Commander Rhapsodos had been. The best General Shinra army could’ve had…”

It didn’t help.  


The burning sensation in his eyes, the magma constricting his throat was testimony to that. The exhale that escaped the part of his lips was overloud in his ears and tremulous, but enough to make the sorrow ebb…for the time being. Staring at the horizon, where the lapis lazuli of the sky met the viridian of the foliage surrounding Gongaga, Vincent wondered if, again, it was time to leave for another destination…that perhaps he’d overstayed his welcome.  


Maybe coming here had been a mistake in the first place…an error made graver when he’d decided to join those who had been commemorating their family members that day. After all, there was already a cenotaph in Midgar...and the empty grave under the name of his son was just as hollow as the ground beneath the plaque and the grapevine cross here.

Deciding not to impose on the younger man’s kindness anymore than he already had, Vincent was about to express his gratitude but Fair’s sudden utterance cut him short.  


“My partner and I are visiting my family here, we’d all be happy if you’d come over-”

Shaking his head, the crimson-eyed gunslinger tried to open his mouth again, but the younger man continued, albeit somewhat quietly.

“My offer still stands, anytime really…”    


“Thank you.” was his deadpan remark. Perhaps it wasn’t enough to convey his gratefulness, falling flat like anything else he might have uttered, but it didn’t make it any less genuine.  


Fair gave him a somewhat beaming smile, fidgeting where he’d been standing and stealing surreptitious glances at the gap in the palisade that made for the entrance of the memorial before finally making up his mind. “I’d better get going, I promised I’d be back before everyone was awake…”

Nodding an ebony-wreathed head, Vincent didn’t watch the younger man take his leave, opting to listen to the rustle of his clothes and his somewhat heavy footfalls before turning around to call at the ex-Soldier’s retreating back. “Fair.” The knee-jerk cessation of the younger man’s movements made him feel slightly guilty, especially how tense and akin to an at-attention position his posture had become.  


Mako blue eyes met his rubicund when the individual in front of him about-faced, tilting his head almost imperceptibly as he awaited what the gunslinger was about to say.  


“Ang-How’s Mr. Hewley?”

At this, the usually jovial expression on Fair’s visage fell, and Vincent had a hard time refuting the knowledge that it made something twist in his gut with worry. He wasn’t left on tenterhooks for long, however-which he was secretly grateful for-because the younger man finally uttered. “He’s…” It was hard not to take note of how Fair’s body language seemed to be torn between telling the truth and a white-lie; busy as he was in how to go about his reply, the spiky-haired ex-Soldier missed the narrowing of Vincent’s crimson eyes. “He’s alright, I guess, but overwrought.” An ebony eyebrow winged upwards, and the individual before him hastened to elaborate. “It’s nothing new...ever since former Commander’s been back, Angeal’s been worrying about him…” The younger man kicked the dirt under his boot, muttering quietly. “Who can blame him...they’re best friends...childhood playmates.”

His surprise was paramount, because-

“-You mean former Commander Rhapsodos?” Searching his brain for any chance that he might have forgotten or mistaken any information regarding the aforementioned Soldier, Vincent kept coming up empty-handed. “Wasn’t he killed in action?”

Now, it was Fair’s turn to look puzzled, and it took him a few moments to regain his ability to speak. “Uh… Well, technically, we didn’t know what had happened to him...Shinra announced him KIA but Angeal and Sephiroth were looking for him, never stopped believing that he was alive. Turns out they’d been right…It’s been around a year-a year and a half since they found him.” A brief pause. “He’s in Banora now-his hometown-so’s Angeal. We’re going there on our way back.”

Vincent was at a loss for words. What did all this mean, if it had any meaning at all…? Did that change anything…for him? Was he going to pursue this information, go chasing this Commander Rhapsodos, like any other individual he had, so he could get to know his son vicariously through the memories of others? Put piece after piece of a puzzle in his head which wasn’t even guaranteed to ever be whole…forever skewed by the perspective of the owners of those recollections…  


Perhaps he was just as selfish…  


Because how was it any different from what Lucrecia had done and possibly still did...holding onto a copy...holding onto anything that could give them something that was forever out of their reach?

Not just being a parent…but a family.

“Do you want to come?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like there are many mistakes in this chapter despite me going over it multiple times. That said, I'm not sure if I'd write another chapter using Vincent's POV, but considering that my muses have taken control of this story, it might happen, so who knows?


	12. Chapter Twelve

Crystalline, as clear as glass and immaculate as a mirror. Water. They said dreaming about water was a common thing, because it’s what everyone’s surrounded with in their infancy, in the womb.

Genesis was, for once, certain that this wasn’t a dream; standing where he was, aquamarine expanding from under his feet. There was a sense of incredible depth, but for some reason, he remained on the surface, unmoving as he gazed at his own reflection and that of the cerulean heavens overhead.

It was quiet, eerily so, especially for someone gifted with enhanced senses…his own breathing, the faint impression of his heart beating, neither of them could be heard; it might have been alarming, perhaps it should have been…he was calm, nevertheless.

Tranquil.

As tranquil as the water's surface.

That was until a feather descended in front of his azure eyes, black as night, pirouetting in the nonexistent breeze, in what wasn’t at all dissimilar to a vacuum. Genesis followed it, watched its dance as though enthralled and yet curious, confused as to its origin.

_Drip._

The wrong, overloud, and jarring acoustic wasn’t as bizarre to him as the ripples that started forming on the water’s surface were. It shouldn’t have been so, his logic dictated, so when he averted his gaze to the welkin instead, it was in order to appease the niggling curiosity about where the sable pinion had come from.

The sky was studded with silvery jewels, and that perception of depth returned full-force; because it seemed like the atmosphere itself had somehow vanished, that there was no barrier whatsoever between his fascinated azure irises and the mysteries of the deep; that somehow, he was gazing at the very cosmos itself.

Raw.

Magnificent.

He was in awe, the confusion of day-suddenly-turning-to-night pushed to the background of his mind as he tried to sate his thirst. All the other times he’d turned his eyes heavensward paled in comparison to what he was witnessing at the moment, the feelings it evoked much more intense, tangible, and yet...distant; so distant they were light years away.

Nothingness.

His field of vision wasn’t disturbed by anything...a clear view of the stygian tapestry of the welkin as far as the eyes could see...following the splash of silvery, celestial ink lower and lower toward the horizon only to find something burning. Red, orange, and yellow…the hues of dawn but not really...instead, the hues of a fire so vast that staying rooted to the ground wasn’t possible anymore.

Trying to take that very first step, however, with gaze glued to the fore, Genesis found that he couldn’t move. Immediately, his focus returned to the crystallinity of the water beneath his feet only to come face to face with a frozen yet clear lake.

As clear as glass.

It wasn’t a lake, or any body of water, but a kaleidoscope of moving images...not recollections, but events that he’d never borne witness to.

The silence from before was no more, replaced instead by an intensifying buzz, a ringing in his ears that grew more and more shrill with each passing moment...not painful yet but getting there. However, Genesis couldn’t stop his eyes from roaming, from trying to make sense of a situation that was spiraling further and further into the realm of macabre and bizarre.

_“There are different modes of oscillation and possible failure when the frequency applied to materials match their natural frequencies.”_

_Resonance_ , they called it.

Right next to his feet, under the clear yet thick ice, was an image of Angeal’s visage, framed by sable tresses; riddled by anguish, as though he was trapped, wanted out, and Genesis couldn’t move-...

The frozen surface exploded into a myriad of shards-

-He fell.

Genesis fell right through, an endless, noir void expanding all around as he plummeted…

Pitch black; the sensation that the nonexistent ground would soon rise to meet him heightened; the acceleration forces acting against him intensified as though he was being swallowed by one black hole-

-shot through by viridian wisps of Lifestream...reaching for him...nearer and nearer-

A flutter of auburn-wreathed lids, and the ground was rushing up to meet him. Genesis tried to break his fall, dropping into a roll right before he hit the rocks; kept rolling until it was alright to sprawl against the mako-slick floor of the caverns of the Banora underground. The explosion of the statue of the Goddess was still ringing in his ears, the rain of immaculate marble over him and all around following it as the jagged pieces crashed against the layered strata…

He didn’t know how long he’d been lying there when he opened his eyes for the second time; he knew for sure that he’d lost consciousness at one point once he’d run the statue of the Goddess through. Vague haloes of the vision he’d had still lingered in the pathways and recesses of his mind, like a seedling burrowing there but for what, Genesis didn’t know. It was quickly pushed to the background of his mind once he heard Angeal’s voice echoing off the cavern walls, calling his name and probably worried to the point of hysteria judging by his tone.

The redhead didn’t feel like moving a single limb despite the rocks digging into his wounds and his nondescript attire. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of his decision...of fighting the most powerful monsters he’d ever seen when he’d been drunk. He hadn’t been inebriated for long; in fact, discovering the dirty little secrets that had been inhabiting their ‘childhood playground’, the realization that the monsters he’d been fighting were possibly the very predecessors their reports had been hinting at, had been enough to ‘purge’ the alcohol out of his system.

That aside, it had been a poor choice of suicide methods on his part; not that he’d been looking for ending his life when he’d taken the first step into the bowels of this place.

Angeal’s voice was getting nearer, more alarmed, possibly due to the corpses Genesis had left in his wake, but the aforementioned had neither the energy nor the inclination to call out to the ivory-haired soldier. He’d have been much more happy if the younger man just gave up on him and went away...left him to his own devices; and maybe slumber would come easy to him now that there were no enemies to kill. Letting heavy lids fall shut, his momentary peace didn’t last long at all, because there was the sound of something hard rolling against the cold, hard ground he was lying on. Near, much like a marble rolling against granite, nearer…

Cracking a cerulean eye open, Genesis found a maroon sphere coming to a stop right in front of him. Angeal’s calling faded in the background as the redhead gazed at it, skeptical of its nature... _of its origin-_...

 _A_ sable _feather pirouetting in front of his eyes…_

“- _Genesis!_ ”

Hastily grabbing what seemed to be a materia- _definitely a materia from how it felt resting in his palm_ -but bigger than any he’d ever seen, the redhead tilted his head and grimaced at how the rocks dug into his cheek.

“You oka- _you’re hurt!_ ”

The ivory-haired individual was rushing to his side, but Genesis was quick to rise to all four, gritting his teeth against the soreness in his limbs, the tug of coagulating blood, and the stretch of fabric against slowly healing wounds. “I’ll be fine.” It came out far more bitter than he might have intended, but something in him whispered _‘good’_ , and the redhead didn’t pursue that vein of thought. Not looking at the other occupant of the spacious chamber, the former Commander rose to his feet. “Don’t worry.”

Genesis knew that from the moment Angeal had found him, he’d hurt the younger man so thoroughly that had it been any other person, they’d have left by now...but the redhead wasn’t so foolish to think that his best friend’s kindness, his forgiveness, and perseverance knew no bounds. Even Angeal had to have a limit. So, if all he’d thrown at him hadn’t been enough up until now, maybe what he’d just said would get the job done.

With his azure eyes fixed to the passage in front of him that’d take him out of the complex cave system, he passed the younger man by, lingering only for a moment to gaze at the materia in his hand before bringing it to a muscular bicep; puzzled sapphire met dispassionate and focused cerulean only for as long as a fleeting glance. They both watched the materia disappear against Angeal’s arm, and once it was done Genesis’ long strides carried him away…

Without a single word.

_Hero of the dawn, healer of worlds,_

_Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul,_

_Pride is lost...wings stripped away,_

_The end...is nigh._

* * *

Days blended into weeks, weeks blended into months… It was tenuous, his stay in Banora.

Emerging from Banora underground, the first place he'd headed to was the Rhapsodos mansion. Not because he was too keen on returning to his foster parents’ house, but because there were no other immediate options. Gillian’s house, he couldn’t go back to...and Midgar, the HQ was out of question. It was a temporary solution...something he had to work with for the time being. Thankfully, it seemed his _father_ upon being _‘promoted’_ to the Governor of the Mideel area had decided that the old house wasn’t good enough.

And apparently, having one residence wasn’t enough as well…

Currently residing in Mideel, his de facto capital, the _governor_ also had a summer villa in the middle of their orchards. A waste of fertile land in Genesis’ opinion, but his foster father’s greed and avarice had never known any bounds. Striding under the winding canopy of viridian leaves and white limbs, the redhead was partially grateful that he wasn’t going to have to deal with the memories behind the doors of the Rhapsodos manor. This new villa, as atrocious as it was in terms of logistics and as absurd in its grandiosity, worked just fine for him. A ‘clean’ slate, one could say...as clean as it could get when dealing with people such as his _father_ .

They weren’t there, his foster parents, and that made things all the more easier.

Idle.

It was an idle sort of ‘life’...not so much of a living but more a passage of time. He seldom left the house, unless he got the impetus to hike and to ‘train’...rose at godawful hours just so he’d be able to avoid everything altogether...to avoid life. It was a ridiculous notion, prolonging living while trying to avoid it, if one were to go about it logically; but it was all he could do, for now.

To just live.

No.

To just _survive_.

That was all it was about…all it had ever been. His whole life, surviving one thing after another… First his parents and his life in Rhapsodos mansion, then SOLDIER, the war with Wutai...and then… and then… Genesis didn’t even want to _think_ about how his case would be ample opportunity for those involved in the psychiatric field. The implications of prolonged exposure to trauma and traumatic events, the nightmares that followed him out of his dreams to his waking hours, all that he was and he would be… He sometimes laughed it off, bitterly of course, calling himself a basket case at his darkest moments...enmired in a sea of self-loathing, mind addled by alcohol and pain; but sober or not, he knew that he was irrevocably broken. And it wasn’t just because of who he was and who he would be… It wasn’t a simple case of nature...but of nurture as well; it was also because of all that he had lost.

Not just his years, but also the person to whom he belonged.

It hadn’t been ownership...of possessing and being owned, but a sense of finding one’s home, not in a point of space-time continuum but in someone... _with someone._ Thinking about whether he believed in the concept of soulmates or not, if what he’d had would count as one, was an exercise in futility…

So was him seeking any sort of therapy. You couldn’t mend something that didn’t want to be fixed, alter someone who didn’t want transformation. One could argue that he’d grown a penchant for his own suffering...that pain was his drug, but it didn’t really change anything about his situation. He wasn’t looking for change or for therapeutic experiences; he wasn’t looking for acceptance or new relationships. Being alone was something he was accustomed to, and it suited him just fine.

Perhaps, it would also help him _heal_ ;

Loneliness.

Books kept him company, so did slumber. The servants knew better than to disturb him more than what was necessary; and while they were entitled to weave their own gossip about his odd behavior and lifestyle, as long as it didn’t reach his ears, it was fine with him.

Days blended into weeks, weeks blended into months… But nothing really changed…

Until it did.

Returning from one of his hikes, from his training routines, he saw Angeal. Banora was a small town, and his _father’s_ summer residence being further into the fields aside, the fact that they had managed to avoid running into each other for such a long time was a feat in of itself. This, however, was a step forward on the younger man’s behalf. A step that Genesis couldn’t abide by.

Not showing anything outwardly, he’d silently bristled until he had been indoors; stormed into the senior Rhapsodos’ study so he could find a map of the nearby lands...so he could find the owners of the farmsteads...or rather the farmstead Angeal had decided to turn into his school of self-defense and martial arts for the youngsters of Banora.

It wasn’t a school per se...it was more of an empty patch of land, long forsaken by its owner who was a senile, stubborn man; didn’t even want anyone to get near his overgrown farm, let alone do to it what Angeal had done. Again, it wasn’t all that much...but considering the circumstances, it made him wonder what deal his best friend had offered to convince that old man to let him do this.

 _‘This’_ was four sturdy wooden posts supporting a roof made out of woven dried leaves that provided some shade for a ring of some sort. Marked by the pebble stones that Genesis knew where the younger man had found them from, the ‘enclosed’ area was some sort of sand wrestling arena. The absence of overgrowth aside, it must have taken Angeal a lot of time...or if not that, a lot of effort. The rest of the land was where he’d seen the younger man train a group of children the basics of self defense.

It was a benevolent and magnanimous gesture...one Genesis had foreseen his best friend take up at some point in his life. What had frustrated him, however, was that it had to be in such close proximity of his foster parents’ new villa.

He took to ignoring it...took to ignoring the weight of that sapphire gaze on his person, and took to turning his face away when Angeal so much as smiled in his direction in his painfully subtle yet genuine way...in a way that made all the redhead’s efforts at preserving the tenuous balance between his coping and his self-destruction fall apart like a house of cards.

Genesis tried so hard to ignore it that in his efforts, he ended up doing the exact opposite. While he was busy coming to terms with accepting his defeat, Angeal’s makeshift dojo was flourishing. The farmers, the parents of those children-some of them, of course-now wanted to learn how to fight.

It was bizarre...watching Angeal from afar, mentoring people who didn’t have swords, materia, or Soldier garb… People who were normal as far as the redhead was concerned, who weren’t striving for perfection in their form as they went through the motions but were trying _their_ best to learn nonetheless. And the ivory-haired man was as patient with them as he had been in SOLDIER, as patient as he always was with everyone...the picture of kind-heartedness and calm. Serious and stern in the face of mistakes, but quick to forgive, to offer reassurance...to offer a helping hand.

It made something stab in his chest, poignant and painful…but Genesis didn’t approach; content with watching from the sidelines as the scales of the balance of their relationship reversed.

It was Angeal’s turn to ignore his presence now. No more were those observing gazes, no more were those subtle smiles. The former Commander didn’t blame him, not really...but he felt something within him give with each passing day he found himself going out of the house; under the excuse of training and hiking-which he accomplished, of course-but not at ungodly hours at night or early morning depending. He found himself lingering more just to observe...to wonder why the younger man even bothered, but it was a ludicrous question. His best friend was a tutor at heart; there was no denying that prideful look in sapphire eyes when he was teaching what he knew to others, the sense of accomplishment, the fulfillment he’d spoken about when he’d taken up mentoring Zack all those years ago.

Surprisingly, the puppy reared his head, along with his brunette partner...exactly on the same day Genesis had finally gathered the courage to approach the younger man and his dojo. His presence was acknowledged immediately, even by Angeal who’d been avoiding him. The inkling that were he to stay longer, either Zack or his partner would approach him instead had him retreating to the villa; and the redhead didn’t dwell on it for long-didn’t think about how he might have missed an opportunity at all.

When the former Commander thought about it, it wasn’t at all dissimilar to one’s progeny visiting their progenitor...Zack visiting Angeal, that is. He wasn’t envious; the former Commander didn’t believe in handing down any legacy whatsoever to another human being, but seeing what he had seen...knowing that Angeal would ask them to stay at Gillian’s made him wonder what he’d missed…made him wonder what the younger man had been going through when Genesis had been away.

Thankfully, his best friend’s protege’s stay was brief, and the first chance Genesis got, he was back where he’d been that day, awaiting the right moment, the right time to take that step. Around dusk, after everyone had said their goodbyes and were on their way to their homes was when he finally moved, one step at a time.

They sparred, like old times, or perhaps as much like it as they could; bokken to bokken, sword to sword, hand to hand, rolling in the dirt and kicking up sand. It was the only time in his stay in Banora that he felt _alive_ , that he felt new blood purging the rust in his veins; felt every heavy breath wipe away the dust that had accumulated in his lungs. It wasn’t about winning or losing, it wasn’t about taking revenge or delivering pain...it was a means of communication, not with words but with actions. Out of some unspoken yet mutual agreement they stopped, decided to go for a swim in the stream Angeal had found those pebbles in...the one that they frequented when they were young, by the old mill.

It was tenuous...and yet, Genesis couldn’t help but wonder that perhaps their friendship had weathered so many things that all the monkey wrenches he’d thrown in it were nothing in the face of it all. Maybe they were both a little desperate for holding onto any vestiges of their past lives they could find...of a time long gone by that wasn’t marred by so many scars. Angeal talked to him for the most part, and Genesis couldn’t help but muse that it’d always been this way with them...for every step he took, the younger man had taken several more.

Idle things, they were. About how he’d come up with the idea of his ‘training grounds’, how he’d managed to convince the owner of the land...how the redhead had been right in his assumption that Angeal had chosen that place specifically to be in front of Genesis’ eyes. He talked about Zack visiting Gongaga and his parents who lived there, and about Gillian liking ‘Aerith’ the instant she’d entered their house...He talked about how his mother had missed having the redhead around…

And then, Angeal had asked about him.

The former Commander had evaded the question by using the lateness of the hour as an excuse. It’d been understood, however, and his best friend didn’t push.

Later, Genesis wished that he’d stayed...that he’d gone to Gillian’s instead of walking back to the villa…

His foster parents were back.

Genesis wondered if a ‘clean’ slate, too, was a luxury he couldn’t afford anymore. He also wondered that, on top of being broken, perhaps his life was all about erroneous choices, bad decisions, and being surrounded by all the wrong people.

 _“Everyone brings honor to their families...they die as heroes on the battlefield, they return home victorious, but you...are nothing but a_ **_disgrace_ ** _. Prisoner of war...hmph! Should I rejoice? Hold a feast that my_ son _has returned? Let me ameliorate that,_ **_kicked out_ ** _of the country holding him hostage because he was of no more use to them? Spared only because he was a Wutain spawn?”  
_

Maybe he was better off dead.

...He’d always wished he had been dead, long ago...stillborn. The realization that he’d have missed meeting Angeal, that he’d have missed meeting Sephiroth and all that followed added to the agony constricting his chest…but that wish was still there, a bone in his throat.

Surely you couldn’t miss something you would never know.

And yet, he had been born...and he had known...and he was still brimming with longing...brimming with hurt.

That was how, that was approximately when his stay at Banora had ended.

Albeit not before he promptly crashed at Gillian’s house, or more specifically Angeal’s room...intoxicated to the point of not seeing straight but somehow coherent enough to finally open up.

It reminded him of all the times back in HQ that he’d joined the ivory-haired man for his late night drinks, after Genesis had been back.

It reminded him of the time he’d run away when his foster mother had called him down to his drawing room to meet a woman with hair the hues of fire and eyes the color of water.

“Remember that time my parents gathered everyone to look for me? I never told you, but I guess we weren’t as close back then. Maybe it was because I wanted to forget it...I wanted it to be a lie, or _our family’s_ dirty little secret.” This he said to the white-washed walls of Angeal’s bedroom, avoiding the solemn sapphire gaze he could feel without even seeing. “ _Roxanne_ , she’d called me down to her drawing room...like all the times before, but when I got there, there was this other...woman.” The redhead had to stop, cut himself off...licked his lips and pressed them into a thin line; azure irises wandered in their attempt to staunch the hot pinpricks blurring his vision.

“ _She_ **_looked_ ** _just like me..._ ” Hissed, more breathed than anything and barely audible for normal human hearing, but they weren’t normal. They had never been. “I don’t even know her name...I...She said something, tears in her eyes-it was ugly Angeal, I was frozen one minute, and when she reached for me, repeated what she’d said… It was in Wutain-” Worrying an upper cerise lip with his teeth. “She tried again, called me her ‘son’ and I just ran away. I ran Angeal-I hated her and I hated Wutai for so long. I hated myself, and I hated him. Because when they found me, when my foster parents brought me home...it was the first time he beat me. There was no need for pretenses now that I knew… He’d even beaten Roxanne. I never knew what happened to her.”

There was a long pause, a chronological passage filled with no sound at all before Angeal seemed to have finally gathered enough courage to speak.

“The-...”

“The other woman.” A slow, subconscious nod of an auburn-wreathed head. “I don’t know. I never knew why, how…” At length, cerulean irises met cerulean. “Why give me away...why give me away to become _this_ only to try and get me back? Why try to be a part of my life again after discarding me, Angeal?” There was a wild urge to grab the v-neck of his best friend’s collar, to yank on it, to shake the ivory-haired man until he himself was rattling out of his bones.

But they were sitting still...as they had been. How long had it been?

Silence. Deafening.

Genesis didn’t know if he wished for the younger man to say anything, but neither of them seemed keen on cutting across the thick veil that had descended upon the room again.

Another long intermission.

“I made a tactical error. I don’t know how it happened, it’s-” Images flashing in his head were filled with bloodshed, snippets of faceless, nameless men being reduced to nothing but ripped sacks of gore in a matter of moments. “ _I don’t-_ ” Pained, a swallow. Dry. _Parched._ “I don’t remember well, but apparently it was a grave enough mistake that I ended up at their mercy.” It was all going to come crashing down now because he’d just opened pandora’s box and now there was no stopping the freight train of his recollections...of what he had to _say_ because if he didn’t…

What if he didn’t? Could it be any worse than every single thing he’d been through?

“I tried. To run. To escape.” Angeal seemed to be having trouble with something, but-“I only got close once, the first time.” Numb. Almost like an out-of-body experience. Genesis knew he was upset…traumatized-

_“The traumatized are unpredictable because we know we can survive... You can survive this happening to you.”_

-Flashes, images, memories-

_“I have all the access to traumatic memories I need. Unlimited access.”_

“It got worse every time…the retribution, _the punishment_ . Torture, it was torture. The promise of being free dangling in front of you, only for you to realize, at the last moment, that it was nothing but a fool’s hope.” There was an overloud issue of breath, a tremulous exhale, but whose it was, Genesis didn’t know. The freight train went from standstill to unstoppable so fast it left the redhead winded. Cupping his palms in front of his visage, he tried to breathe through it but he couldn’t until it was all out.

Trying to spit it out, however, the former Commander didn’t know how to go about it...didn’t know where to start. An acerbic laugh escaped him but not intended for his audience, at his own helplessness.

_“There is nothing like grief and trauma to pull people together.”_

Did Angeal even want to hear it? To take it upon himself, to add one more worry to his never ending burden?

“They broke me, Angeal. In more ways than one...heinous ways...so irreparably and so irrevocably that it left me hollowed out.” The ugly, bitter truth. “I…I had no desire to escape…because I had nowhere to go. I had come to hate Shinra as much as I had hated Wutai. And Sephiroth…”

_I miss him...terribly.  
_

“ _Masamune-_ ” His voice shook from the strain. “I saw Masamune, and I… It was painful to survive, to exist from that moment on… Nothing really mattered-”

Suddenly he was standing, but as soon as he was up on his feet, Genesis didn’t know what he wanted to do with himself. Did he want to run away? To pace? To slump back in his seat? Perhaps it was the fight or flight response from back then?

“-Gen wait-!”

Because he’d never really _dealt_ with it...just let it fester there…

“Seven years is a long time, ‘Geal… I became what I hated, learned to speak what I hated, because there was nothing for it anymore. It’s easier when...when you’re empty. When all you are is either lost or nothing but a lie.”

“Gen…”

“ _This void…_ It’s always gonna gnaw at my insides… I had to and I still have to learn to live with it… There’s this…” He choked on his own word, and the hot pinpricks in his eyes returned yet again; had to look away out the window. Blink, just blink and _breathe…_ “This _longing…_ ” At length, when he spoke next, his voice broke despite it being barely audible. “ _I miss him…_ ” _I love him...always._

Porcelain skin blistered when the salinity rolled down his right cheek. And suddenly, Angeal was standing on his feet, visibly tense...uncomfortable, distressed, fidgeting where he was because he didn’t seem to know what to do.

“I miss you… I miss myself… Miss when everything was alright…” A bitter huff escaped his lips that was half acerbic laughter and half a poignant sob. “You said you wish you had been there instead of him, but maybe if I’d never been, if neither of you had met me, both of you could’ve led much better lives…! Maybe I shouldn’t have told you any of this-”

Warm, calloused palms. They cupped his face, and suddenly all that filled his vision were misty sapphire eyes.

“ _Genesis…_ ”

_“There is nothing like grief and trauma to pull people together.”_

“I’m going to Midgar. I’m gonna accept the position they gave me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and foremost, there are a couple quotes in this chapter from Hannibal TV Series which I don't own.
> 
> I also want to apologize for the lateness. I had so much trouble writing this and I was going through a tough time. I wasn't satisfied with it for a long time before I edited and rewrote some parts. Now I'm mostly unsure, because there's a lot happening toward the end and I didn't-still don't-know whether it's too much or not. 
> 
> Your feedback is very much appreciated, and thank you all for reading and following the story.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unedited and unbeta'ed. Not the best comeback, but if I spent one more minute on it, I would've ended up not posting it. I'll try to come back later and fix as many mistakes as my limited abilities allow.
> 
> Thank you for bearing with me and not giving up on me or the story. Without further ado, enjoy!

_ “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” _

_ A smile and a pat on his shoulder. An azure glance toward the chopper perched in the middle of a viridian field, rippling in the wind.  _

_ “I’ll be fine, Angeal. Don’t worry.” _

Distant words, but the grey-haired man had been holding onto them for almost a year now. 

Looking back, it seemed like it had been a long time ago, and yet, less than how long it actually had been. Angeal had found that the days, the weeks, the months seemed to be hurrying after one another in an escalating manner with each passing year. Maybe it was a facet of getting older, or perhaps an intrinsic property of time… The former General didn’t know.

He was no physicist. But then again, Angeal didn’t always need scientific evidence to believe in the things he did. A folly perhaps, but there was also nothing wrong with sticking with the tried-and-true.

The concept was that when we’re young, there’s a world to explore...new things to discover every moment of everyday; and the brain marks the passage of chronology by these significant timestamps. As we get older, things that can rouse that sense of adventure, that can ignite the flame of curiosity come fewer and far in between; therefore, the stretches of time unmarked betwixt-as long as they might have been-lose their significance, or might as well be forgotten.

If someone had told him ten years ago that it was a notion he’d entertain at some point in his life, the younger him might have dismissed it as politely as he could. But so many things had changed throughout the past decade… 

Genesis had been right. Seven years is a long time. 

Attempting to hold a faction he’d sworn loyalty to together despite it being in tatters, fighting tooth and nail for a cause that now seemed so... _ naive,  _ for lack of a better term, and keeping everyone in check during the Transition had simply been the major events going on in the world during the time his best friend had been held prisoner.

What the redhead had told him in the confines of his room had thrown him into a sea of conflict. Angeal wanted to help, but Genesis seemed so far away, and the waves kept threatening to pull both of them under. 

The dark-haired man didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to help.

Somehow, he’d ended up taking a backseat and watching his best friend’s life go on. Watching the seasons go by. It was hard at first, and not just because of what the older man was going through. Maybe part of it had been because he’d attempted to get his spot back on the show during the time Genesis was healing. 

To anyone who didn’t know the redhead, it seemed like Commander Rhapsodos from all those years ago had come back; older, more experienced...more tempered. Angeal knew better. His best friend had asked to reside in his apartment instead of his own or Sephiroth’s, and while the dark-haired ex-First had been more than willing, he couldn’t help but feel like things were shifting...the undercurrents were changing and something was about to happen. He didn’t know what or why, but when Veld came to him on the eve of his departure from the base to tell him that he’s watching over his friend, it put him somewhat at ease.

Those niggling feelings hadn’t been misplaced.

It was subtle… None of it seemed to affect the way Genesis had been performing his duties. Shinra seemed more than eager to have one of their most prized possessions back in the fold, and while Angeal didn’t know how the older man could go back to serving a company like theirs-despite its changes-how he could go back to being entrenched in dogma, his best friend didn’t seem to have any qualms. But then, the auburn-haired Commander left his apartment to live in his own...the quarters that had been barely lived in before their owner had been captured.

Maybe he should have just stepped aside then. But then again, all of us are guilty of wanting things to be back to how they used to. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s simply too far from reality. That there’s no stopping things from always undergoing changes, and wishing for it to be otherwise, wishing for has-beens is futile. 

Genesis broke down barely a week after he’d begun living at his ‘own’ living quarters. 

Hurrying back to the headquarters as soon as he could, Angeal only caught up with the backend of it… It was an ugly feeling. Realizing how powerless he was in the face of what his best friend-who might as well have been his brother-was dealing with. It was nearly enough to tear down his whole world, to shake his very foundations… 

And then, he realized that those undercurrents were not only changing for the redhead but also for him. 

His presence at HQ yielded little to no result, or at least it was how it seemed. He kept Veld on his word, but both of them knew that things weren’t that easy...they never were.

Genesis went to live in Sephiroth’s apartment, and soon word came that he had moved a bunch of his personal possessions there. And Angeal wondered if this was perhaps permanent...that perhaps his best friend had finally found an equilibrium.

The dark-haired ex-First was thrown way out of his own.

His hometown felt strange around him without the older man. Gillian was there, but she wasn’t the same either… It wasn’t that the age seemed to be slowly but surely catching up with her but something else. Perhaps the knowledge of how one’s choices could affect so many lives was becoming more apparent… 

Angeal couldn’t blame her for that. 

He moved to soothe her and reassure her, but there were times he didn’t even believe his own words. Times he couldn’t help but scoff at how useless his affections and affectations were in their simplicity. 

His mother didn’t love him less for it. She seemed to understand what was ailing him but never mentioned it; it was in her grey eyes, the way she held onto his hands, the brief pats on his shoulder and the curling of her fingers around it. 

It was enough. For both of them. It had to be.

Genesis seemed to be faring better, but there were times he was wallowing in the depths of despair...times that he was so out of reach, like a distant star, gasping...And Angeal couldn’t do anything! Words, gestures, being there physically, emotionally… 

Nothing helped. 

His best friend was drowning, and he was sitting on the banks of the murkiest depths, watching his visage disappear in the dark.

Helpless.

Something happened.

It was too hard, too hard, to make himself understand that he wasn’t leaving his best friend alone; that it didn’t mean that he’d had enough. So hard to shake the cloak of betrayal off his shoulders and realize that there was simply nothing more in his power that he could do to save Genesis from himself.

It was hard, tremendously so.

Maybe it took his mentoring and teaching in Banora to finally grasp that. That he could still love Genesis and not be able to always be there to help him. That maybe, he couldn’t help him any more than he already had. That he’d run out of options, of methods, of insight and whatever else he might have been able to provide.

It went against his very nature. The acknowledgment that there was nothing more he could give, that what he’d given so far-and he’d given all he could, all that he had-hadn’t been enough, would never be enough. 

Angeal stopped visiting the headquarters after that.

With that distance, with that acceptance… 

It seemed to do both of them good. Veld still told him about how his best friend was faring, and Angeal was grateful for it. He was grateful for the late night calls...content to hear his best friend’s voice over the phone and imagine what he’d been up to; what he was doing at that very moment. There were times that it was hard; times when Genesis was drunk and _talked,_ times that Angeal just couldn’t _unhear_ the trembling of his voice, couldn’t burn the images of his best friend’s tears away and out of his mind…

...couldn’t help but wonder if Veld would call him the next morning with a news he couldn’t comprehend, a news that he couldn’t cope with.

Thankfully, that day never came...

His makeshift dojo flourished, and standing there amongst his newest proteges, standing in the middle of an empty patch of land after they had finished for the day, Angeal couldn’t deny the pride that swelled in his chest, the contentment… A job well-done, a distant wish-or perhaps goal-slowly unfolding and coming true.

The myriad of voices sending kiai to the sapphire welkin brought him out of his reverie and brought a pleasant curl to his lips. His irises roamed over their determined visages, remembered the day they’d come to him asking to teach them how to fight. The smile reached his eyes, reminiscent of the one that had stretched over his lips that day. It had taken a lot of convincing and demonstrating for them to agree to his terms; to understand that it took more than simply holding a weapon in your hand to know not only how to fight, but also to defend.

An equilibrium… Such an elusive concept, and yet, Angeal kept finding himself reaching that conclusion regardless of the matter at hand or the subject he was talking about. It had become some sort of motto, and he found himself striving to hold that balance...starting from himself and going from there. 

It was bizarre. 

Maybe it was the degradation, the notion of running out of time perhaps, of reaching the end of the line that had brought on this level of maturity-he couldn’t help but let out a short chuckle whenever he thought that-this calmness in both his demeanor and mind. He found himself more engrossed in contemplation, paying more attention to things that he might have taken for granted once; negligible things, everyday things: the breeze playing in his hair, the rustle of emerald leaves in a zephyr, the susurrus of the waves of golden stalks…the radiance and the heat of chartreuse rays of the sun caressing his exposed skin, the light tanning of epidermis… the trickle of the stream, the cool of it whenever he went for a swim, the rush of water in his ears and rediscovering the underwater world after so many years… 

He missed Genesis terribly sometimes, but he also learned to make peace with that. Content to hearing his voice, really content and grateful that their friendship had survived throughout all these years...throughout things unfathomable. 

Angeal still had nightmares, but they weren’t a new facet of his life that needed to be dealt with. It was something that he’d gotten used to, but it didn’t mean that it made it an easier burden to bear. Sometimes, he found Gillian trying to comfort him when he jolted awake, sometimes it was just him and the indigo canopy of the skies, the cold twinkling diamonds watching over him through the window and he wondered… 

It was enough, really more than enough.

Looking back on his life, he couldn’t find any regrets except for twain. 

He had to learn to live with them, and that was what he was trying to do.

A sigh passed his lips, and he focused once again on the here and now. The sol was nearing its zenith, and it was around the time that the-

His phone went off. 

A few of his proteges faltered in their practice, and Angeal had to wave a hand for them to continue before fishing for the device in his pants pockets. It couldn’t be his childhood friend; the older man was busy long into the evening hours, an unhealthy work ethic he’d taken upon himself as soon as he’d gotten back to Midgar. The raven haired former Commander didn’t have to ponder for too long, however, because it was Zack’s number flashing on the screen. 

_ Strange,  _ he thought; as in a deviation from his monotonous daily routine, but not unwelcome. It was with a smile that he answered the phone.

“Hey Zack,-”

_ “-Angeal, you gotta come here now. Genesis is in big trouble. Really, we’re all-” _

There was a sharp bang, all too familiar-“ _ Zack! _ ”-his near shout was drowned by the static and the loud, thundering growl on the other side of the line.

“ _ ZACK! _ ” Worry twisted in his gut, rose up to choke him. Attempting to hold back the sudden insurge of adrenaline, the miniscule yet restless tremor in his limbs, and the fight or flight response that came to him like second nature was like trying to shed his skin and become someone else.

_ “Shit!” _

Straining his hearing, Angeal could make out the rumble of an engine, but it wasn’t only that...there was the far louder cacophony of stones and land tumbling, and the dark-haired ex-First couldn’t understand how in Goddess’ name his former protege had gotten himself into a war zone of some kind. 

_ “Angeal, we need you now. Heading to Fort Condor, but don’t think-”  _

More static.

“Zack? ZACK?”

Turning to gaze at the horizon at where his protege might be in that very moment, Angeal couldn’t help but realize that it was hardly a decision then. He’d go to the ends of Gaia and back.

_ “Just-...-soon as-...-n-” _

The fabric ripped at his back, but it was negligible in the face of the gasps he could hear at his back, the dull thuds of bokkens hitting the earth… The pain was an intimate fire breaking across his skin. Gritting his teeth against it, against the carmine viscosity slithering down his back, Angeal took to the skies for the first time in his life…

_ Genesis, the dream came true. _

His calm, however, his peace, was no more.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

_They_ were lucky that he got there in time.

Thankfully, being the executive of SOLDIER had its perks.

It felt wrong calling himself that, too long a time the title had been reserved for Lazard, but now… It was nowhere near as wrong as calling himself the General of Shinra’s non-existent army. 

It was almost blasphemous.  _ Well… _

A younger version of him would have bristled at the idea, because  _ surely Goddess knew how hard he’d tried, and he’d earned this.  _ And he  _ had  _ in fact earned this, tooth and nail, sweat and blood, too much time lost, and  _ pain… _

It was hollow, meaningless. He had earned nothing, this was nothing. Naught compared to what he’d endured, what he had lost, what… 

Upon his return, he’d thrown himself into work. If Genesis Rhapsodos, Age thirteen from Banora had worked tirelessly, thrived beyond everyone’s imagination all those years ago, this new- _ old _ -Genesis’ efforts put him to shame. 

He started back in his old position, Soldier First Class, Right-hand Commander–... No. SOLDIER had no Generals when he’d come back. SOLDIER was a horde of strangers, nameless faces,  _ all green initiates _ , no Zack, no Angeal, no  _ Seph– _ … There was still Lazard. 

He, too, was a changed man. The blond-haired executive was different, a familiar darkness behind those bespectacled eyes, but Genesis found within himself that he couldn’t care any less. Maybe he shouldn’t have blamed him for surviving within the suffocating and confining organization that had been the Shinra Company. Having a tête-à-tête with him didn’t make him feel any better or more inclined toward benevolence, quite the opposite actually, but Lazard genuinely seemed like he wanted to help,  _ to extend an olive branch _ . 

Surprising even himself back then, the redhead had agreed to the offer of truce.

The back-then executive of SOLDIER got him most of his rights back sequentially. It wasn’t solely due to his putting a good word in for him, the azure-eyed First definitely tried his best to gain every ounce of repute through hard work–because that’s who he was, who Sephiroth was- _ had been _ –but it helped to have the blonde bespectacled man on his side. Genesis wasn’t sure what was in it for him, maybe Lazard didn’t have that quid pro quo mentality like his half-brother did, but the redhead had had enough of trusting people, a system, blindly.

No betrayal came from that direction, however, and they left him alone and were content with his service. Being at Shinra again proved harder than he’d expected, but he wouldn’t have been Genesis Rhapsodos if he hadn’t powered through it. Sometimes, he accompanied their men on their patrol at night, the memory of his crash speeding down the highway a distant thing…but no less painful. On other nights, when he’d had enough being SOLDIER’s newly appointed General, he snuck into the training room… Many times, his bravado gave out before he could even initiate the simulation. Many times, his feet took him there because he’d wanted to rewatch Sephiroth’s many recorded sessions, but it was just too painful, too nostalgic, too raw. Many times, he quoted Loveless from heart just for the sake of old times, staring at the blurring, split image of the silver-haired man until the simulation crashed around them, and him with it… 

He stayed away from the labs and that-that-...-like plague. Not that he was allowed anywhere near it, but it worked for him just fine.

His first board meeting after having come back was a bizarre thing. Too many empty chairs, too many ghosts dredged up from the nooks and crannies of his memory. Lazard was with him, but he might as well haven’t been. Genesis had been so stunned that he hadn’t even noticed Rufus Shinra coming in, his brain was too busy contemplating why Senior Shinra wasn’t there; where Palmer was, Heidegger, Scarlet… Where Hojo sat, there was now a woman with hazelnut bangs, and a visage that nearly had him careening out the back of his seat.  

Lucrecia Crescent.

Lazard had to recount everything they’d discussed in a private meeting with him again because he had been too out of it trying to catch up and categorize however way the brunette scientist was acting. She’d seemed distant, absent-minded even, and morose. It gave Genesis a distant yet morbid satisfaction thinking that perhaps her  _ little experiment _ wasn’t going according to her plans. However, that had been quickly pushed to the wayside when the bespectacled blonde had shared with him the news of his wanting to step down as the director. And furthermore, appointing him in his stead. 

The redhead had laughed it off at first. 

Because there was simply no reason for Shinra to acquiesce to something like that.

By all accounts, he had spent enough time in Wutai to be considered one of their citizens, not that it meant anything, just that…there was enough reason and evidence for them to figure out that it had been him who had  _ slipped up _ , that the originator of their current predicament was Genesis Rhapsodos. 

But apparently not.

He spoke none of this, however, though not due to his nonexistent greed for the position that was being offered to him on a silver platter. No. It was what Lazard had uttered, in the relative privacy of his– _ Sephiroth’s _ –quarters. 

That familiar darkness seemed to palpitate in the depth of the older man’s icy irises as he spoke, and it was both a blessing and a curse.

There was simply no way Genesis could look more into what the blonde was hinting at, and there was no way the redhead could act upon what was divulged to him, if he acknowledged the verity of what he’d heard in the first place. However, he couldn’t refute it anymore especially once Rufus agreed to his half-brother’s proposal, and just like that, the auburn-haired General was made Director of SOLDIER.

The whirlwind of administrative and personnel-related chatter, rumors, and turmoil aside, it wasn’t all that different at first…until it was. Genesis chalked it up to them being short on manpower. And they were, in all honesty. There were nowhere near as many executives as there used to be, and while it was logical to hire more employees, it was a time and resource-consuming process. That was not taking into account the many background checks that needed to be done to have what amounted to an unknown parameter so high up in the hierarchy of the company. 

That, and one obvious fact: why hire and allocate more budget to HR when you could spend it in other venues, in  _ other departments _ ?

That’s when the truth, or at least what Genesis suspected to be the truth, couldn’t be overlooked anymore.

It seemed that Shinra still had tricks, or rather  _ snakes _ , up its sleeves that could surprise him.

For once, after nine years, Genesis entertained the idea that maybe, just maybe, it hadn’t been solely  _ him  _ who had leaked like a sieve.

That maybe there was someone who could’ve gained far more from  _ selling  _ that kind of information, someone–... 

It had worked in the past, so who said it wouldn’t work now? After all, why fix something that’s not broken? Shinra’s regime wasn’t flawless but it had worked like a well-oiled machine for many years. Probably would’ve worked like that for far longer if  _ someone  _ hadn’t thrown a monkey wrench into it. 

And they had all the things they had started with. All the right ingredients. True, they had less land, less money, and a much more skeptical population, but those were all minor setbacks given the right tool… _ or tools… _

So maybe it started as the seed of doubt that Lazard had sowed in his mind, but Genesis wasn’t willing to take that risk.

It fortified his resolve all the more to see that Sephiroth copy eliminated. He wasn’t going to stand by while they attempted to repeat what they had done to all three of them all over again. 

The redhead wondered if Angeal had known. If Reeve and Veld knew, if Lucrecia knew. Wondered if it made any difference for them were the truth to be revealed. Wondered if it’d again end up being a two– _ one _ –man fight; if he’d end up failing again before accomplishing anything. If he’d end up losing far more than he could’ve gained.

The past had a tendency to repeat itself, and for that, Genesis needed a foolproof plan. He was a strategist, and while he might have had a sounding board and an  _ accomplice _ before, he was alone in this now. He couldn’t risk dragging Angeal into it and stepping so much as an inch out of line would reveal his hand.

And thus, he had a rough draft of a barely formulated plan in his head when the premature chance to see it come to fruition presented itself.

Or so he had thought when the squad that guarded the labs called for backup, and he happened to be on the SOLDIER floor gathering his squadron for the night patrol.

They were lucky that he got there in time.

Or perhaps not.

Standing unscathed amongst a multitude of bodies lying haphazardly on the pristine floor–alive but just barely, hanging by a thread–Genesis was effectively caught unawares. He had seen it happen once, and only once in his life before, but there was no way he could mistake the inaudible susurrus of sheer willpower, couldn’t deny that the tiny hair at the back of his neck were standing on end.

_ Kokoronai Tenshi _ .

That’s what the Wutain called it, and by proxy the one who wreaked that horror on them.

The man in front of him, however, was no heartless angel. Just a fraud. He had to be. Everything about him was wrong. Like staring at the simulated silver-haired man in the training room. It was just off. Genesis couldn’t put it into words, but it was as though a tick had burrowed under his skin, and he couldn’t wrench it away, he couldn’t shake it off.

Seeing that standard-issue broadsword in his hands made it even more jarring.

That said, the redhead couldn’t stop the malevolent glee from twisting in his gut at the sight of the hazel-haired scientist at the other end of the sword. Nowhere to run now. Not anymore. The blade was digging into the thin skin of her delicate neck. _ How he wanted to wring the pale column of that throat… _ And yet, at the same time that she was alarmed, she seemed oddly resigned in the face of what would be her own death. At the hands of someone whom she probably saw as her son.

It took a long moment for Genesis to realize how tense he was. Rooted into place, and muscles aching with tension even though he had done nothing but walk into the scene. Hadn’t even thrown up a Wall– _ not that it would’ve made a difference _ –had simply just watched the backup he’d brought along abruptly go limp around him like puppets cut from their strings.

Why had he left him alive?

No matter. Even if he had to die to get rid of this mockery, he would do it.

This doppelganger would get rid of Lucrecia for him, if he survived, but Genesis doubted it. He might have been at a severe disadvantage the last time he’d been to Level 67, but not now. With his– _ also standard-issue _ –blade now in his grasp, azure eyes narrowed on the back of their target, lips drawn into a thin line. 

“Step aside.” 

If it ended up being a fight to the death, then so be it.

His adversary didn’t deign to reply or even face him for that matter. When no answer was forthcoming, the First added. “I’d say that’s an order, but you’re not exactly one of my underlings.” There was a pause. “Warning you wouldn’t work either. Besides, if you had wanted to proceed without hindrances, you’d have knocked me out just as you did them.” Gritting his teeth against the words that he had to utter next much to his dismay, Genesis finished. “Let her go.”

Hazel eyes cut to him, as though she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. But the sword at her throat wasn’t lowered, in fact, it dug a bit further in…enough for her to wince and try to push further away, as though the wall at her back would give way; instinct and survival starting to kick in.

And then, the unmistakable metallic tang of blood.

In a blur, Genesis was next to her, nondescript steel pushing against steel, and it was odd…because all three of them knew that the doppelganger had the upper hand here, then why yield? Why let himself be pushed away instead of lobbing her head clean off before the redhead could so much as budge?

While his brain was churning, Lucrecia hurried away only to yelp and nearly fall backwards. Holding the green-eyed copy at bay with his sword and his forearm pressed against Lucrecia’s throat, Genesis tried his damnedest to put an end to the mental struggle that was waging in his head. The silver-haired lookalike was not a threat, at least not yet; and possibly seeing that their objectives aligned for the time-being, he’d probably play the long game, just as he had up until now. He’d had ample opportunity to end Genesis which he hadn’t acted up on. Which was also what the older man had trouble figuring out;

_ Why? _

It had to wait. Lucrecia made a choking noise, clawing at his hand and trying to kick her way out of the stranglehold but to no avail. And the azure-gazed General wondered if she finally understood the folly of her experiment, that the  _ maternal feelings  _ she had were for nothing but a shell. Because the copy was just standing there, observing her frantic thrashing as her life faded fast. 

Genesis wondered if Sephiroth, if the real Sephiroth had been here...would he have done the same?

With a snarl, the auburn-haired First pushed the doppelganger back and threw the brunette away. Disdain and contempt rose like bile at the back of his throat as they both stared down at her prone form sprawled on the floor.

“You don’t deserve it.” It was a hiss, and Genesis didn’t care whether she heard or not. These were words he’d wanted to utter ever since they found out the truth. The words he’d have uttered were he to have met Lucrecia Crescent under any circumstances whatsoever because he believed in them. “You don’t deserve a quick and merciful death.” Pain gripped his heart and bled into his voice. “You still have a hell of a lot to pay for everything that happened to Sephiroth,  _ Every. Single. Thing. That. Happened  _ just because you were a  _ coward  _ and decided to run.”

That was all he had to tell her. To waste any more energy and breath on her would be a travesty.

He’d probably be court-martialed for his  _ mistreatment  _ of her. At the very least, he’d receive a slap on the wrist which wasn’t highly likely, given his track record. At worse, stripped off rank and discharged. With a wry smirk twisting sanguine lips, Genesis placed his bet on the latter; if not far more severe, given what he had set out to do in the beginning. 

Back to the objective he’d had in mind when this  _ chance _ had presented itself.

Pivoting on his heel, the older man finally met his adversary’s gaze for the first time. Azure locked with emerald green, and the whirlwind of emotions and the zooming of multiple trains of thought in his head came to an abrupt halt. That susurrus from before that started off as inaudibly faint built up like a crescendo in the back of his mind; a sapling burgeoning in the brainstem and spreading its limbs.

And then Genesis knew.

They both knew.

Without hesitation, without so much as a warning, the redhead drew on his power and sent the silver-haired doppelganger hurtling toward the nearest wall. The conflagration that had swallowed the copy’s form left no room for visual on his target. A gust of air hit the labs, and Genesis didn’t tarry; long, brisk strides carried him toward the gaping hole in layers of concrete and steel before he jumped after his quarry.

Plummeting, his sights were set on the silver-haired man who was plunging further down, and it was too hard not to give in to the recollections of their spars, too hard not to give up because a free fall of this height…neither of them would survive–...

A controlled descent at the last moment, and the dent the copy left in the facade of the lower levels was negligible; the financial and structural damages getting catalogued in the back of an auburn-wreathed head, but Genesis paid them no heed. Instead, mako blue irises zeroed in on the silver and smoky blur that would’ve been impossible to follow had he been a normal human. At this point, their best bet was Sector Four which was still under construction, its development delayed due to all the bad luck Shinra had had during the past decade. Same could be said for the outlying upper plate where the infrastructure was still visible, bare limbs reaching out to the barren abyss surrounding the metropolis. But that was none of his concern, not at the moment.

A familiar pain seared along his spine, and in a flurry of ebony plumage, the distance between them straitened in a matter of moments. An ephemeral smirk tugged on a corner of vermillion lips as ivory fingers grasped the silver-haired copy’s arm. Normally, the redheaded First didn’t expect to be able to haul the younger man or someone of his stature, but the noir pinion at his back flapped once and it was enough.

Heavenwards, swooping towards his intended landing before letting go, Genesis unleashed yet another fiery spell. The barrier that absorbed it was something foreseen, something expected, but the cerulean-eyed General followed through; another onslaught, and pursuit. Weaving in between tower cranes and scaffolds cradling construction sites and half-finished buildings, it was merely a dance of barely-lit physicalities and distorting umbra: no more blows exchanged, and instead, a meager respite from the approaching whipping of the blades of multiple choppers.

They couldn’t stop for long.

Viridian met cerulean again, and it seemed those infinitesimal moments–just like back at the labs–were enough. 

It wasn’t enough to overshadow the twinge that stabbed at Genesis’ heart. 

The nonvocal consensus they arrived to in tandem-no words, no expressions-the naturality with which teamwork eased its way between them, it was just too easy, too familiar,  _ too intimate.  _

Their gaze was broken, and only when those emerald irises flitted to the appendage at his back did the redhead notice that his face was contorting in a wince; only then he felt his whole frame aching with the tension just being in the copy’s presence evoked within him.

They didn’t have time. The fugitive veil of safety mesh, the truss of the numerous tubes, couplers, and boards could mess with radar signals for so long; and the shade of levels of concrete and steel wouldn’t save them once the patrol and the troops arrived.

Nodding toward the adjacent sector, Genesis finally broke his fast: “Let’s go.” And with that, he felt something break in him, but _‘there’s no time’_ was the mantra that kept blaring in his head. They had to leave Midgar as soon as possible. There was no way back for him, he had absolutely no value now that he’d revealed his true colors–honestly, he’d expected his expiry date to have come much, _ much _ sooner. But that was beside the point. He was a dead man, and Shinra would spare no effort in reclaiming their final and only golden ticket, their only potential game changer that could turn the tide of war.

And it was war still.

Getting rid of the sentinels– _ i.e. disabling them just long enough _ –to be able to cross the guarded perimeter of the sector into Sector Five was plain sailing. Would have been a piece of cake if they went for a more permanent approach or the Kokoronai Tenshi, but not giving Shinra more pretext to rally the public against them was also a factor they had to keep in mind.

It was a miracle– _ not that he believed in them _ –that he remembered the puppy’s residence from those early, very muddled up memories. It was no surprise that the neighborhood was still resuming its ignorant somnolence. It being a godawful hour in the morning aside, there was no reason for Shinra to be looking for him here. Not yet, at least. He had attacked his silver-haired shadow–whether in full view of any security cameras in the labs or Lucrecia Crescent’s presence–and that left little room for the Administration to suspect any unlikely alliances forming between them. As far as they were concerned, the two of them were at best probably still grappling in dirt in Sector Four, or at worst, heaving their death rattles.

The thought of _an_ _alliance_ left a bitter taste in his mouth.

The sight of Zack’s pickup, however, helped but only negligibly. 

Opting for the backdoor which had them making a trek into the overflowing yard with its graveolent flowers might not have been his best decision, but then again, it’d work in their favor to alert the younger ex-SOLDIER and kickstart him into fight or flight mode. They needed that–… 

–What they didn’t need was the blade that suddenly came out of nowhere and nearly cleaved him in half.

The fulguration of the barrier illuminated the foyer around them but so did the brief shower of sparks betwixt Zack and  _ Sep- _ the copy’s blades. The sable-haired man moved back–whether in shock or to attempt to land another hit–but Genesis pushed forward from behind the doppelganger to put a stop to all this.

It was a tight enclosure, the redhead acknowledged briefly, hugged by a wall at his back and a body– _ a body?! _ –that was too immaculately sculpted; so perfect a replica that it was eerie, that it was…sickening. It was hard not to catalogue all the minute details that came into focus from the proximity, impossible to stop the virulent trace of antiseptic, processed mako, elemental thaumaturgy, and smoke from invading his olfactory senses.

Genesis pushed through it all and held out a hand. “Zack,  _ stop! _ ” 

The puppy’s brunette spouse was right behind him, a stave of some kind held behind her back; bleary-eyed but at the same time ready to fight, it seemed.  _ Interesting _ , was a fleeting whisper quickly pushed to the back of his mind. 

In his peripheral vision, the auburn-haired General– _ ex-General,  _ he ameliorated inwardly–noticed his green-eyed associate gauchely trying to move away and put some distance betwixt the two of them but to no avail. A narrow entryway table rattled dangerously, and it seemed there had been enough awkwardness–for the entirety of the time it had taken since their breaking in until now–to put an end to this madness.

“Genesis, what’s going on? What’re you doin’ ‘ere?”

_ There’s not enough time. _ Mid-exhale, and Genesis forced the choked remainder of the respiration out of his lungs in an overloud rush. This wouldn’t be easy. The puppy had too many questions, and answering them required a patience that the redhead was currently running low on. Convincing him to help them was also out of the question, not because the older man wouldn’t appreciate the extra help– _ power in numbers and all that _ –but because the puppy’s loyalties lay elsewhere now. 

Azure eyes narrowed at the green ones that were gazing at his silver-haired companion– _ companion?! _ –a bit too intently. What was her name again? Too bad the fiery-haired ex-First couldn’t remember.

Regardless, he was no more in the mood for playing the diplomat than he was for explaining himself and his plans. That left him with only one option.

“I don’t have time to explain Zackary, my situation isn’t exactly ideal you see–” Nodding to his right, the former General continued. “But I need to borrow your car. I probably won’t be able to return it but I think Angeal could compensate the expenses and–”

“–Whoa, whoa!” Zack raised both hands–free now, the blade probably held by his espoused–to stop him midspeech. To say it was irritable would be an understatement, but the older man bit his tongue and waited. “You comin’ to ma’house in the dead of the night, bargin’ in through the backdoor, give us one hell of a scare, ‘n’ now you want me to lend you a car?” 

A sanguine mouth pressed into a thin line. Why had he thought– 

“But wow…” A hand ruffled the already unruly tresses. “Man… ‘Geal had told me ‘bout him, but I never thought it’d be so uncanny…” The younger ex-SOLDIER shuddered, and Genesis couldn’t care less.

–that coming to Zack for help–

“You stole him from Shinra, di’n’t ya?”

–was a good idea? It was through sheer willpower that the redhead stopped himself from facepalming, or alternatively, setting the house on fire. Beside him, the doppelganger had gone utterly statuesque as well, but it was hard to tell what he was feeling or thinking.

_ Did it  _ **_even_ ** _ matter?! _

Making up his mind, Genesis decided that he probably had to resort to other plans and means to get them out of the city; and the longer they spent tarrying in this place, the tighter the guard surrounding the city would get, and the slimmer their chance of escape with no direct conflict. 

“Zack, I think–” The only gal in their midst started before being rudely cut off by her partner.

“–Of course, I’d help!” It was almost corporeally palpable the moment all the attention in the room immediately zeroed in on the sable-haired ex-SOLDIER. “We’ll come with you, but you’ll have to give me a destination and all the deets on the way.”

Arching a fiery eyebrow, the former General wondered whether he should address the elephant in the room– _ which was the ginormous amount of unknowns Zackary was turning a blind eye to _ –or not look a gift horse in the mouth and ride it into the sunset as far as he could and discard it whenever it became inconvenient. Additionally, it was a ‘two birds with one stone’ sort of situation, so when his clearly surprised gaze flitted to the only woman in their group, it wasn't to dissuade the puppy. Nor was it because he was concerned with Fair’s partner’s well-being. It was born out of the mentality that, at the moment, he couldn’t determine the extent of the gal’s prowess when it came to fighting, and this wasn’t a situation he could afford having a weak link in his chain.

The femme seemed to have caught up on his meaning and turned a faint shade of roseate.

“I–…”

Apparently Zack did too, but he was beaming so wide Genesis feared his face would crack in twain. 

“–Oh, Aerith can fend for herself. She’s pretty good. I’m proud of her.”

And apparently that was enough for whatever frustration  _ Aerith  _ had worked herself up to, to drain from her because there was no mistaking the affectionate and  _ indeed  _ proud look on the puppy’s visage. The brunette nodded then, resolve fleeting across her face before she announced.

“Better get going then. But before that, do you need to re–” Before either of them could shake their heads to refuse, she caught up on her lapse.  _ Quick thinker, good memory;  _ it wasn’t bad. “A change of clothes.” Twin pairs of viridian irises locked. “Something to eat?”

““No, thank you.”” Both he and  _ Seph _ -the copy replied in unison, and Genesis wanted to spontaneously combust. His facial features must have betrayed him somehow because Aerith beckoned the silver-haired man to accompany her, and Zack’s following query was laced with a tad more enthusiasm than was necessary.

_ Fake. _

“So, where’re we goin’? Should we call ‘Geal?”

“Banora.” The redhead replied half-heartedly, mind churning as he stalked their green-gazed duo with his eyes until they were out of his sight and then that unaccustomed presence around the house with his mind. To think that this was only the beginning… 

Genesis resigned himself to his doom.

“No, Zack. That won’t be necessary.

* * *

“ _ YOU SAID IT WON’T BE NECESSARY! _ ” The puppy yelled, nearly falling out of the rolled-down window as they swerved dangerously amidst the aureolin canyons. The sol was already up, trekking towards its zenith while throwing the dark umbra of the chopper-that had been hot on their tail since they passed Junon’s metropolitan area-ahead of them; them staying away from well-trodden roads notwithstanding. A round of bullets had them veering violently in a meandering trajectory, and both he and the copy had to hang to the grab rails for dear life before Genesis patience ran out. Slamming a hand on the roof, the redhead barked just as loudly as Zack had, only for his voice to be drowned out by the megaphone Veld was employing from within the chopper. 

_ “Former SOLDIER Zackary Fair, stop your vehicle. You’re assisting a renegade in his theft of Shinra property–”  _

_ “–he’s not a property, he’s my  _ son! _ ” _ The quieter voice in the background was Lucrecia’s, Genesis had no doubt. But that was of no importance at the moment. There was no way in Ifrit’s hell they were going to shake this bird off their tail and in the middle of a desert no less. They just had to persevere, for now at least, until a better option or solution presented itself. 

“ _ZACK!_ By goddess if you do that _one more time–_ ” The former General had to grit his teeth when another round nearly threw him into the doppelganger’s arms. “I’m deflecting the bullets by a Wall _Goddamnit!_ _Just. Fucking. Drive!_ ”

A pessimist voice whispered oleaginously in his head that this was a mistake or at least agreeing to Zack and his wife tagging along was. But it was too late to turn back now. Thankfully, the puppy floored the accelerator then, and after an infinitesimal moment of wheelspin, they were more driving and less swerving unmanageably in the sand.

His sapphire eyes were focused on the black metal hull that was hovering constantly above them, glaring at it as though looks could do the damage he was barely holding back from wreaking. The whipping of the blades was a ceaseless noise as the pilot attempted to maneuver the giant aircraft through the gaps between plateaus but had to pull back up due to the random natural arches and the narrowing of scarps on their sides. 

Their pursuit continued but a fleeting glance toward the path ahead bore no favorable promises. He’d already known that they wouldn’t be able to keep at it for long, and sooner or later, the topography that had so far been their saving grace would change. Further south they’d emerge onto flat plains, and– 

–Genesis picked up on the hiss of the air-to-ground missile too late. “ _ ZACK! _ ” The yell was lost in the chaos that ensued. The Wall was in place, so there was no way they or their vehicle could be harmed by the rocket or the fountain of rubble and detritus that shot up at that moment and the next seemed to want to bury them. It was the ground that shook, the thick shroud of dust, and the seemingly uncontrolled veering of their vehicle as their hapless driver attempted to outmaneuver the aftermath of Shinra’s unwarranted attack.

It was a fluke that they didn’t end up with a flat tire or flip over considering the amount of jostling they endured in those brief yet overly long minutes. The redhead had been too focused on the fore and their means of defense to notice anything else; all the while attempting not to fall over the bed walls or slam into the silver-haired man next to him in the back of the truck.

When they finally made it onto an undemolished portion of the road, the bullhorn blared to life anew and there was a hushed, barely intelligible squabble that Genesis could only pick up bits and pieces of but frankly didn’t pay any heed to.

They started this and they’d, in turn, earn whatever was coming for them. 

Without any preamble whatsoever, scorching spheres of conflagration were hurtling toward the helicopter. It brought him no satisfaction as he detachedly observed them mirror the motions they had been going through only minutes ago; much harder in the sky, however, due to the drag force and all. The former First went through painstaking efforts not to hit the metal bird, accidentally or otherwise, because that wasn’t what he’d been aiming for. It was a statement, a warning, a response to their threat. Feasibly, the chopper could tail them all the way to Fort Condor and they’d deal with Veld and whomever he’d dragged along right then and there. Therefore, there was no point in continuing this for long; Genesis couldn’t keep going through his resources by throwing Firagas at them, or keeping his Wall in place.

As it was, when he deemed it was enough and quite literally ceased fire, it was Lucrecia who addressed them this time.

_ “Mr. Rhapsodos, Genesis,  _ please! _ Just let us talk, you’re a soldier, a man of both action and logic. Please let us talk and come to an agreement–” _

_ “–Sir–” _

_ “–ease, let’s not risk other people’s–” _

_ “–unknown entit–” _

_ “–uld talk like–” _

_ – _ If his reflexes had been any less keen, the auburn-haired ex-First would’ve been flying over the roof and the hood and rolling in the dirt in front of the pickup. As it was, he slammed into the back of the cabin, heard the metal groan under the impact and the glass crack as Zack slammed on the brakes; and then, they skidded to a total stop. The chopper flew past over their heads before it could catch up with their sudden grinding halt, but Genesis and the rest of their quartet were no longer taking notice of that. Not for the moment at least, because standing several feet ahead of them on the road was another one-winged  _ angel? Human? Monster? _

 

It was Angeal.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

The chopper that was slowly landing behind him was of no immediate concern. Technically it should have been, but when his sapphire irises took in the passengers of the vehicle in front of him, namely the brunette who was attempting very hard to hide her quaking frame as she mirrored her spouse’s getting out of the car, the chopper was the least of his worries.

The trepidation that had frozen in his veins simmered into a boiling rage; contained but just barely.

“Angeal, I-” His protege stood by the driver’s side, holding the door ajar as he tried to explain, only to be cut off by a furious redhead who was rounding on him from behind.

“Zack, what the hell-”

His resolute strides had already closed the distance between them, so laying a reassuring hand on the puppy’s shoulder, Angeal uttered solemnly. “It’s okay, Zack.” His gaze however, didn’t stray from the sight of his childhood friend. 

The grey-haired Banoran didn’t linger, brushed past his pupil and intercepted the eldest of their quintet. Digits digging into a black-clad bicep, a forearm pressed against a well-toned chest, and that was enough to halt Genesis because there was no way he was pushing past him. Angeal stood rooted in place, pretty much like the Dual Hound the older man sometimes likened him to. 

“Give me one good reason.” 

Silence hung. Even the ceaseless noise from the blades of the helicopter started dwindling into nothingness.

Angeal knew that this wasn’t good; that if they were to face against whoever had come after them, they needed to be a united front rather than at each other’s throats.

It was only then that he noticed, that he  _ actually  _ noticed what his eyes were taking in.

Genesis looked like hell.

Azure eyes seemed perpetually haloed by dark circles, and those high cheekbones were more prominent than he remembered… If the grey-haired man wanted to go by appearances, it seemed that his childhood friend had been starving himself of both food and sleep. As it was, despite all this, despite the fact that Angeal was mutely surprised that the redhead hadn’t fallen over already, the eldest of their quintet was holding his ground and holding it with very much the air of the General Shinra had appointed him to be.

Probably not anymore.

As his mind was trying to come up with one remotely logical reason that his best friend would want to throw away what he’d earned, what he’d worked for, that he’d want to rescind what he’d said before he left Banora for Midgar, there was a movement in his peripheral vision.

Genesis was still silent, even though the footsteps that had been approaching came to a halt behind them. Before the redhead could say anything, it was Lucrecia Crescent who spoke.

“Mr. Hewley,” Angeal acknowledged his name solely with a look over his shoulder. His hand which had gone somewhat lax against his best friend’s chest was pushed aside, and they both turned to face Veld and the white-clad brunette who were standing several feet ahead. “Thank you for intervening.” Meanwhile, on the other side of the truck, whom the former General now recognized as the Sephiroth copy had discarded the jacket he’d wrapped around himself and was now approaching the Turk and the Scientist in front of them; especially with the slouchy beanie following the same fate and the silvery tresses freed, there was no denying his identity. 

Zack hadn’t lied when he’d said Genesis was in trouble. He just hadn’t mentioned how big of a hole his best friend had dug himself into. With this new, revealed piece of the puzzle, the grey-haired ex-First knew that he had to think, and think fast, but there was little he could do considering his scant knowledge of the circumstances and the narratives involved. While he was acknowledging this as him reverting back to his previous behavior-i.e. trying to save the redhead-the aforementioned man had brushed past him and was approaching the duo in front of them as well.

Sapphire irises darted to Veld who was still holding his gun.

“Freeze! Put your hands over your head!” 

“Seriously Veld?” The eldest of their quintet retorted cockily while complying nonetheless. The doppelganger-like both Aerith and Zack who were still standing by their vehicle, behind the doors-came to stop; everyone eyeing the fore where the sable-haired Turk was having a tete-a-tete with the redhead. “Listen. I have a couple or so witty retorts on the tip of my tongue, but you know as well as I do that we’re at an impasse. Hence this: we parley.”

Veld’s stoic visage didn’t waver. While he didn’t initially comment on what Angeal’s childhood friend was proposing, his hands didn’t lower his firearm either. Ms. Crescent, on the other hand, visibly relaxed, seemingly favoring this vein of approach. The grey-haired former General couldn’t blame her. Shinra’s side was at a distinct disadvantage if there was to be a conflict with their current numbers; them having a chopper and said chopper brimming with either Turks or infantry notwithstanding. 

It might have been a bit startling for the Angeal of yesteryears; that he’d rise to defend his best friend against the company he’d served for so long without even knowing the full story. But not now. And it wasn’t really only his childhood friend on this side but also his protege and his protege’s partner. Whatever this situation was, whatever the parameters involved, he made up his mind that he’d spare no effort in seeing it come to a peaceful resolution. There was simply too much at stake. And if Genesis wanted to turn a blind eye to the number of lives he’d put at risk by pursuing this, whatever it was, Angeal would make sure to remind him.

That wasn’t to say that the redhead wasn’t going to get one of his  _ famous  _ lectures that was coming for him.

“There’s no parley,  _ former  _ General. You’re in no position to make any demands or propose anything whatsoever.” There was a gravid pause before Veld continued. “You went against strict orde-”

“-did not. There was a massacre going on in the labs.” A gesture toward the white-clad brunette. “I saved her life, that nick on her throat bears witness to that-”

Obsidian irises flitted to the woman next to the leader of the Turks before reverting to their original focus. Either way, it was enough for Ms. Crescent to weigh in with comments of her own, or she was simply quick to correct because when she opened her mouth it was to utter: “-He did but he was also the one who nearly suffocated me. Even Sephiroth can attest to that.”

The silence that settled afterwards was the calm before the storm.

There was the brief acknowledgment that the hapless speaker had no real understanding of the time bomb she’d just triggered, but it was negligible in the face of the imminent danger and the amount of subsequent damage control efforts needed in the aftermath.

The problem was…

Even after the shock wore off… 

Even after Veld awkwardly cleared his throat… 

Nothing happened.

Angeal was forced to do a double take. Because who was this redheaded person and what had he done with his best friend? 

Genesis’ posture was tense, visibly so, but other than that, there were no outward reactions nor were there any eruptions or outbursts. Perhaps the redhead was going to pieces inwardly; and the grey-haired ex-SOLDIER didn’t know whether to be proud of him for managing the situation so well or feel heavy-hearted for his childhood friend’s broken heart… 

“As I was saying.” Veld began, and it appeared that Zack, Aerith, and him took a collective sigh of relief. The doppelganger was merely observant. As the ebony-haired Turk continued, Angeal had to put rumination over the possibility that he was deliberately avoiding looking at him aside for the time being. “You went outside mission parameters when you openly attacked Experiment No. 124 and the sentinels stationed at the border of Sector 4. In addition to that, you evaded prosecution, kidnapped and refused to let go of Shinra property.” Ms. Crescent was certainly not appreciating Veld’s word choices, but she wasn’t objecting for now; not that the aforementioned man was finished. “You are to be court-martialed, which I assume you know. So, it’s to your benefit that you come willingly.”

“Are you quite done?” was Genesis’ blase comment.

To Angeal’s right, Zack heaved a weary sigh before promptly depositing himself in his seat, hands holding his head and disheveling his already unruly locks. “This is gonna go on ‘till dawn.” His partner, who had stopped quaking for a while now, shot him a small smile but otherwise didn’t move from where she’d been holding onto the door. 

The eldest of their odd group half-turned to address Zackary’s comment nonchalantly. “No, Zack. This isn’t going to go on ‘till dawn. Here’s what we’re gonna do.” His redheaded former comrade regarded his original focus then. “I decline, and unless you have backup coming-which is highly unlikely-” An auburn-wreathed head made a show of looking around. “You’ll agree with my terms. We can’t shake you off our tail, and you can’t arrest me or make me come with you, or any of us for that matter, without direct conflict.” A pause. “You’re a good leader, Veld, our departments not always seeing eye to eye aside. You know what’s good for your men.” Genesis waved his hand dismissively even as he exhaled loud enough for even Angeal to hear despite the distance. “A year ago, she proposed that I spend time with him so he could retain…  _ Sephiroth’s _ ...memories… The incentive was that I could also process my grief.” The lull between what had just been uttered and the next was leaden. “I wasn’t ready back then. I reacted foolishly. But this time, I was simply doing my job. I didn’t know what I was walking into when I got a request for backup, when I took my men down there. I had to defend myself when I unleashed that spell because the same thing would’ve happened to me as had my men. You’d have a rogue agent on your hands and a very-much dead scientist.” 

“I can go on and on in my recounting of events, but him and I,” Genesis gestured to the silver-haired doppelganger before continuing. “We had a little  _ chat.  _ There’s a lot more than just memories that I can give him, and you know that. We reached an agreement, but  _ I  _ decided to leave Shinra out of it. Leave Lucrecia out of it.” Another gravid pause. “Shinra already tried that with Sephiroth. Hojo did.  _ It failed, didn’t it? _ ” The last sentence was hissed through gritted teeth. “But to hell with it. We’re heading to Banora. Come along, dog my every step, do whatever you want, but let’s just be on our way, shall we?”

“You also have the tracker.” A deep voice uttered, a very familiar voice.

For a moment, Angeal was positively disoriented. Because he’d never expected to hear that voice again, and not after  _ so  _ long. The hope that Sephiroth might have actually survived that horrible incident and somehow teleported here, _ that infinitesimal moment of hope _ and the feelings that it evoked within him were akin to that of a miracle.

It was ephemeral, however.

Because, then, his eyes took in the sight of the man who was the split image of someone who wasn’t among them anymore.

Halfway crumbling to ruin for his childhood friend, Angeal acknowledged that the feelings he’d had were nowhere near what Genesis must be going through; nowhere near the emotions the older man must have, both good and bad. It was in that moment that he also realized that he’d have never made the same decision if he’d been the redhead, but he wasn’t; that he didn’t approve because there were too many pitfalls, paths rife with more heartbreak, and simply too many ways it could go awry, but his approval had no place here. 

It was Genesis’ life, and ultimately, his choice.

That didn’t mean that Veld, Ms. Crescent, or Shinra were going to agree to it...even though his former comrade’s offer was rather generous. 

The grey-haired ex-First was also very grateful that they were spared the unnecessary details as to what more the redhead was planning to give to the green-eyed individual apart from memories.

“As long as we can accompany you and him wherever you go, I agree.” Ms. Crescent answered before her Turk companion had the opportunity to come up with a reply of his own. When the aforementioned man regarded her questioningly, she added without missing a beat. “Giving me full authority over this case aside, Shinra left me in charge of him, and I see no harm in trying this. You can correspond with the headquarters, but I’m sure they’d approve.”

“A tracker? Doesn’t that concern anyone?” It was Aerith’s astounded query. “A tracker as in a tracking device? On a human being?” The younger brunette closed the door before coming to a stand next to the copy. “But he’s a  _ person… _ experiment or not. How can you do that?” __

Those were valid questions.

Problem was, no one had a good answer for them. They could come up with reasons; they could blame Shinra and its history of employing drastic, preemptive measures, but would they be anything more than excuses for something that was, in essence, uncondonable?

No one seemed keen on breaking the awkward quiescence that settled among them. It appeared that the brunette scientist had more words that she wanted to utter, but the silver-haired doppelganger beat her to it as though reading her mind.

“I’d known it since before you. Its locus is of no immediate concern.” 

“As a gesture of goodwill, I can ride in the helicopter, with your men, Lucrecia, and Aerith. You, Angeal, and him can go with Zack.” Letting that hang for an infinitesimal moment, Genesis tilted his head before adding. “That is, if you agree.”

When the copy half-turned to regard the obsidian-eyed Turk, the shrewd look within those emerald irises was eerily familiar. “Do we have an agreement, Veld?”

* * *

“Yes, sir… Understood… Over and out.”

Averting his gaze from the back of a silver-wreathed head, visible through the cracked glass at the back of the cabin, Angeal saw Veld flip his handheld device shut. The auditory knowledge of the whipping blades of the chopper was a distant background noise, drowned by the lapping and crashing of the waves against the hull of the car ferry. 

The sable-haired Turk didn’t decide to break the silence that fell over them after his call to the headquarters, and neither did he. Instead, he let sapphire irises roam, looking amid the sparse crowd for a spikey head of noir. Spotting it wasn’t hard, and not because of a lack of numbers aboard or the smallness of their vessel; the younger man was standing at the bow, enjoying the briny breeze that tousled his locks.

It reminded him of his own youth, of times gone by, times that he used to do the same thing when they were being deployed to Wutai. The desire to join the ex-First smoldered within him, but there were still many unuttered words left between him and Veld, and he had promised himself to spare no effort in seeing this deal through.

But how to start? Where to begin? 

Leaning forward where he was sitting in the back of the truck, Angeal brushed a calloused hand against his visage before opening his mouth. “Veld…” He had to close it again, because what was there to say? 

A leather-clad hand rose between them as obsidian irises flitted toward the direction of the cabin. 

Out of an unspoken agreement, they both rose to put as much distance between them and the truck as their current logistics allowed. Opting to go toward the stern, it was the older man who began.

“I’m going to be frank with you, Hewley. You have one hell of _a_ _ friend _ ; mulish, reckless.” Veld shook his head. “If he doesn’t get himself killed, he’s gonna make one if not all of us end up at the gallows.”

Despite the sternness of his company and the grimness of those words, Angeal found himself laughing. “You’re underestimating all of us.” Composing himself and sobering up quickly, he added. “We’ve all survived tougher ordeals. And by we, I mean all of us.” They came to a stop by the railing, and the blue-eyed man clutched the cylindrical metal bar; felt the cool of it against bare epidermis before it started warming at his touch. “I know I’m no longer affiliated with Shinra, but that doesn’t mean I’m indifferent to the goings-on of the company. I’ve spent a lot of time serving it, finding a home there among my men, to be able to cut it all entirely out of my life.” Glancing to the quiet Turk next to him, the grey-haired former soldier briefly contemplated his next words before uttering them. “You know me, and you know where my loyalties lie...where they’ve lain all these years.” 

Silence met his words, so he continued. “You were there watching over Genesis when I couldn’t.” When Veld seemed like he wanted to object, Angeal hurried onwards. “It might not seem much to you, but it is to me. He is my friend,  _ my brother.  _ I appreciate what you did. I acknowledge that, today, if it had been any other person, everything would have gone differently. But they didn’t. They didn’t, and for that, I’m grateful.” To utter what he wanted to next, he had to pause longer, had to mull it over again and again. “Let me be honest with you.” Closing his eyes, he turned his back to the blurred line where the sea met the horizon. “I won’t deny that I have a vague idea about where Shinra is going with this, but ultimately, if it comes down to choosing between my friend’s life and the Sephiroth copy’s, I’ll pick the former. It might go against all that I stand for and all that I am, it might make a selfish man out of me, but I can guarantee you that if I had to chase Genesis to the ends of Gaia, I would; if that means that Shinra would leave him alone, that they would let him live his life in peace, I would; and I would make sure that what’s theirs is returned to them.” 

There was no way Veld couldn’t see the honesty and the determination that burned in his eyes. Maybe his vein of thought-from earlier, about the Sephiroth copy-wasn’t that complex; he already knew where he stood, so would it be so wrong to go from there? Looking up, at the steely thunderheads that veiled the chopper from view, the grey-haired ex-First wondered what his best friend was thinking, what he was feeling; especially being away from the green-eyed individual he’d brought along, especially sitting next to the woman who thought the aforementioned man the real one. 

Zack was still at the fore, but he was observing them with a strangely keen expression on his face. If he wanted to venture a guess, the former General would say that the younger man was concerned about Aerith; that perhaps, Fair was wondering how the youngest of them was faring just as Fair’s mentor was about his best friend. At that, an apologetic look rearranged his facial features. It might have been lost on his protege due to the distance, but that didn’t make it any less veritable. 

With a jolt of surprise, the thought that maybe the sable-haired ex-SOLDIER and his partner had agreed to help Genesis and accompany him because of Angeal rushed to the fore; and that only served to further the contrition on his countenance. It made him decide that if they were given time, he’d try his best to talk with both Zack and Aerith, and try to make amends. 

Yes, that was the least he could do.

The former General’s eyes made a languid trek toward their vehicle where the sapphire of his irises met emerald green.

From where they were staying, there was no way he could see the details. But once, a long time ago, he’d met a silver-haired adolescent, an old head on young shoulders, with those exact same eyes. The real Sephiroth was the person they had befriended, the one whom they’d gotten to know as well as they were able; he was the one whom they were  _ close  _ to, and close enough to be allowed in his presence to know that those emerald irises had vertical, slit pupils.

The haunted look on Genesis’ visage flashed in front of his eyes, and Angeal had to close them; turned to face the horizon as he pressed them momentarily with a thumb and a forefinger, exhaling as he did. There were many things he wanted to ask the redhead, many things he wanted to tell him...but they all had to wait. 

There was little to no visibility. What had been an imperceptible line separating the welkin from the bounding main was no more, fog a thick curtain hanging above the azure-emerald deeps.

What he added next was as much for his Turk companion to hear as it was for himself; thinking out loud…

The question was...was the verity of his words unquestionable as his remorse from before had been?

“I’m not saying that I’d treat him less than the individual he is; that I’d stand and watch Shinra do to him as they did to whom he looks alike. But while Ms. Crescent and Genesis might see more in him...the Sephiroth I knew has been lost in the mists of time.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typos, allnighter, etc. same old, same old. I think the next chapter might also be from Angeal's POV, but who knows. My muses have taken the reigns of the story, and I have no choice but to obey. For some reason, I always find Angeal's chapters hard to write-as in the words flow with more reluctance than usual-and also somewhat unsatisfied with them when I'm done.
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoyed reading this even though it almost amounts to 3k+ words of possibly boring dialogue. We'll see more action- _hopefully, *looks expectantly at muses*_ -in the following chapter.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

“You don’t have to do it.” An infinitesimal pause. “You don’t have to do it for him.”

The snipping sound stopped. The usually homey quiet of their empty chalet was now something that weighed him down. It stretched onwards, gnawing at his insides, and even then, the seam of his lips remained adamantly closed. There was a clatter, metal against porcelain, and finally at length:

“I’m not doing it for him.” The faint screech of an unoiled hinge. Another  _ snip _ followed by more silence. 

Heavy, it was heavy.

“I’m doing it for myself.”

* * *

If it weren’t for the pouring aquatic droplets and the two sets of heaving breaths on either of his sides, Angeal would’ve wondered that the time had come to a standstill.

He could still almost hear his own yell in his ears as he’d stepped between the two to intervene.

In front of him, Gillian was barely holding Lucrecia back, both their visages fraught with worry as they looked on. 

Upon their arrival, Veld had dismissed his multitude of Turks. Watching the black hull of the helicopter disappear among the clouds, they’d begun a long trek through the fields, taking the long way home so as not to be seen by the majority of townspeople. Once they had arrived at their home, his mother’s grey eyes had locked with Ms. Crescent’s, and the two women had hit it off as best as two individuals who had previously had occupations in Shinra’s Science Department could. It had been stilted at first, the awkwardness of it seeping into the atmosphere,  but Angeal had seen how the ice began gradually thawing between the two of them. Gillian had proposed they go for a stroll and try to catch up on all the years that had passed since the two had seen each other. Seeing the hazel-haired woman hesitantly acquiesce was a painfully familiar sight, dredging up memories of someone closer to home, someone who, irrefutably, had inherited part of his appearance from her.

Despite Genesis’ offer that their extended entourage stay at his foster parents’ residences-who would be certainly delighted to have them-Veld, Aerith, and Zack opted for accommodations closer to the Hewley’s, leaving the cottage to book a couple of rooms in a nearby inn. 

That had left the three of them, alone. And yet, even though there had been a plethora of words both on the tip of his tongue and cluttering up his throat, Angeal had remained quiet. 

Maybe he shouldn’t have. Then again, he hadn’t thought it the least bit possible that they’d end up where they had when he’d remarked on their lack of belongings and volunteered to shop for some necessities. 

It was too late for second thoughts and regrets anyway.

Their audience was drenched from head to toe, pretty much like themselves, with the exception of four people who were half-way drenched in mud. By all appearances, Gillian and Ms. Crescent had possibly been on their way back, beating a hasty retreat through the deluge when they had come across this, whatever it was.

Wild sapphire eyes darted to his right where Genesis was breathing heavily; burning azure irises visible through the soaked curtain of fiery locks. His childhood friend was glaring at him and at the man who was standing to Angeal’s left as though the grey-haired had somehow gotten incorporeal, and that heated gaze could pierce through and kill. But even with those auburn tresses plastered haphazardly to the visage in front of him, the former General could still see the minute details: the coagulating blood on a broken lower lip, the wide bruise flowering on the older man’s right cheek and jaw; lower, where those leather-clad fingers halfway rose to the redhead’s torso, and Angeal looked up just in time to catch the backend of a barely imperceptible wince.

There was a movement in front of him. 

“Lucrecia!” Gillian called, but the scientist had already extricated herself. 

“Sephiroth, you’re bleeding!” The brunette’s voice was concerned, alarmed even.

Angeal was forced to turn around and assess the situation; in which ‘Sephiroth’’s caretaker was hovering around the beryl-eyed doppelganger, delicate fingers tentatively touching the side of a silver-wreathed head. There were hematic trails down the side of that heart-shaped face, but for the most part, the copy seemed relatively unharmed; or, his clothing-a nondescript lab garb torn here and there and caked with mud-were hiding the damage. 

Behind him, Genesis spat on the ground before opening his mouth. “This is what I was talking about when I wanted to leave you out of it. It was just a spar. Nothing mako and Jenova cells can’t fix. Get over it. Keep your motherhenning to yourself.”

Even though it was the silver-haired lookalike who first distanced himself from the brunette scientist, Ms. Crescent also stopped her examination abruptly in order to quite literally get in Angeal’s childhood friend’s face. The aforementioned man’s quick reflexes saved them from yet another squabble, but they couldn’t stop her from yelling.

“ _ What is  _ **_wrong_ ** _ with you?! _ He might have a concussion! Or worse, he could be internally hemorrhaging! How am I to save his life here in the middle of nowhere, with no equipment,  **_nothing_ ** , simply because you  _ selfish-...! ignorant-... _ **_prick_ ** dragged us all the way here!” Hazel eyes cut to him, eyeing him angrily as though the grey-haired First was to be her next recipient. She didn’t, however; opting to sullenly await his best friend’s reply instead.

As it was, their audience-which had comprised their extended group ‘till now-was steadily growing in numbers; drawn by the outburst, townspeople were mostly lingering nearby the cotter houses. 

Whatever his childhood friend and the doppelganger had been doing, the damage to the surrounding area was minimal. Not because no spell had been used; there were prominent scorch marks, places where the barren, muddy field was charred despite the heavy downpour, but that was about it. Thankfully, it was neither the harvest season nor the time for preparing the ground, and Angeal decided to count his blessings as they came…

But they were limited to that specific issue it seemed.

Because while their curious onlookers remained at a safe distance, murmuring as they were, it wasn’t far enough for their enhanced hearing not to pick up bits and pieces of the ongoing conversation. 

The grey-haired ex-SOLDIER didn’t miss the way cerulean irises iced over; maybe they had before Angeal had actually locked gazes with them, but that was neither here nor there. What was relevant was the amount of hostility radiating off his childhood friend, his focus zeroed in on the woman who was extricating herself slowly from where the younger man’s arms were keeping her both safe and away from the redhead.

“You know…Hojo used to do a far more nastier number on Sephiroth, on the  _ real Sephiroth _ , when he was in charge.” There was an odd quality coloring Genesis’ tone; one that didn’t sit well with the former General, one he couldn’t pinpoint no matter how thoroughly he wracked his brain. His former comrade’s right hand did rise to clutch his side then, a wince contorting his visage for the briefest of moments and then gone just as soon as it’d come. “And for the record, we always used to spar like this…” The digits of his free hand mirrored that of the other but continued their ascent until they were in front of the older man’s face, with the orange flames licking at bare epidermis not backing down from the rain. 

A gun was cocked-Veld, it had to be Veld-but Angeal couldn’t divide his focus between keeping Ms. Crescent at bay, keeping her safe, and being there for his former comrade. He had to move further in front of the brunette scientist, not because he thought that Genesis would do it; no. The faraway look in those azure eyes was enough for him to know that his auburn-haired friend wasn’t there but instead reliving their reminiscences of a brighter time; irises following those swaying flames as though they could capture in their dance the most elusory of memories. Angeal had to move just so he could keep one arm in front of Lucrecia and the other toward the direction of the owner of the gun in a plea for time, for patience, for the Turk to stay out of it.

“It was always about dancing around the edge of too much, too serious. Always pushing the boundaries…” When the younger former soldier was wondering if he’d erred in his assumptions, those pale fingers curled into a fist, extinguishing the fire of what could’ve been a very powerful spell. But those eyes, those blue eyes were boring into hazel ones with a frigidity that burned. “But you don’t know, do you? Because you were never there.” There was a pause, and the sneer twisting those cerise lips was brutal. “Ask him, your  _ Sephiroth _ .” The name was spat as though a curse. “Even  _ he _ would know.” With that, with his point driven home, Genesis finally moved, brushed past them with so much indifference that would have shaken anyone who didn’t know him as much and as long as Angeal did. 

“Show’s over people, go home.” The order rang out curtly. And whether it was due to the people knowing the redhead and his family or due to how the command had been uttered, the crowd started dispersing, and along with them spread the word on the street.

But that cat was already out of the bag, and they’d have to deal with it later. 

Sighing and focusing on the present moment, Angeal didn’t see where the older man went. Another thing he had to deal with at another time. He’d found him earlier, there was no reason he couldn’t do it again. Hopefully he wouldn’t be a day late and a gil short, however.

“Lucrecia…” Gillian’s kindhearted whisper was what brought him out of his reverie. 

The scientist was almost statuesque, tense and at the same time not. At his mother’s utterance, however, the brunette’s shoulders slumped somewhat forward; her head lowering whereas she’d been staring blankly at the space his redheaded best friend had vacated. A calloused hand Angeal knew very well settled against a white-clad back before the grey-haired woman began rubbing Ms. Crescent’s back in, the General assumed, comforting circles.

Immediately, the ex-First realized that he didn’t know what to do or what to say. Subconsciously having distanced himself from his mother and Sephiroth’s biological one to give them some privacy, the blue-eyed man noticed that the doppelganger had also moved toward Zack and Aerith. Veld, on the other hand, seemed torn between tracking Genesis down or remaining with them. 

Angeal was having the same predicament.

Their, or his, solution was presented to them when Gillian and Ms. Crescent began a languid trek back toward the town; his protege and his viridian-eyed partner seemed to be headed in the same direction but with more haste; and with the spit image of his late silver-haired friend heading toward their home, that left Veld and him. The aforementioned Turk’s mind was made up then, and  _ that,  _ in turn, made Angeal’s decision for him. 

The former General held out a hand to stop the head of the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department. Obsidian locked with sapphire. The younger man could tell that the individual before him was unimpressed with how the matters had unfolded. The irritation that whispered within him that  _ he just couldn’t seem to win with these people _ was pushed to the background of his mind when he began. “I won’t stop you. I know that you have to interrogate him some more-and I’m not saying that lightly-but I’m still true to my word.” Letting his arm drop limply to his side when no answer was forthcoming, Angeal searched Veld’s visage for a sign, anything. There was nothing. Not even when the sable-haired Turk holstered his gun and set about what he’d been doing prior to their one-sided tête-à-tête. The exasperation from before reared its ugly head while ebony-wreathed sapphire eyes gazed at a retreating back. As he called out, it mixed with the desperation coloring his tone. “I’ll handle this.”

Angeal kept watch until he could no longer see the back of a black suit through the sheets of downpour and the greenery of the foliage. There was a wild urge to throw his head back and yell at the heavens, but the logical part in him objected and questioned its purpose, so he refrained. Instead, he decided to bore holes into the waterlogged soil. 

Briefly, he thought about his dojo. He hadn’t exactly dismissed his pupils when he’d abruptly left in the middle of their training. He’d seen a couple or so of his younger trainees grappling in the rain and dirt before; but considering that it was late already, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that no one would be there now.

There was no use postponing the inevitable. 

The concept of being alone with the beryl-gazed doppelganger made him feel on edge. The fact that his mind was drawing parallels between the situation at hand and the first time they’d met the original silver-haired individual wasn’t helping him at all. Maybe the passage of time was at fault for his narrow purview; but was it prejudice, really? Then what of the friendship he’d had with his late commanding officer? What of all they had been through? All the memories they had, all the blood, sweat, and tears they had shed? Those were the deluge of thoughts flooding Angeal’s mind as he about-faced, his leaden feet closing the distance between him and their chalet.

Entering through the backdoor, the shiver that quaved down his spine had nothing to do with how soaked through his clothes were. The perception of someone else’s presence was a constant which the former General pushed to the background of his mind as he set about to start a fire. The twilight hues took longer to kindle and consume the stove-lengths, though whether it was due to his edginess or some other reason was beyond him. His next objective was to get the pile of clothes he’d haphazardly abandoned by the door into a semblance of order. It gave him something to do, something mindless and at the same time quite effective for blanking out the landscape of his mind. It took his thoughts off of how there was a barren feel to the otherwise homey space, how the quiescence was suffused with an evasive kind of tension. 

Having finally folded and stacked the garments into two neat stacks, Angeal had been about to head to his own room for a change of clothes when he heard it.

It was faint, the auditory knowledge of whatever was happening, but there was no mistaking the direction from which it was coming.

His feet took him to the bathroom door of their own volition where he came to a stand. 

The noise stopped.

Separated by a panel of timber, it seemed as though two separate worlds were coming to a stand still on the cusp of coalescing.

Should he knock? Would the individual behind the door even want him loitering around? After all, what kind of a host would he be if he didn’t allow the younger man’s lookalike a measure of privacy, as much as their tiny house allowed? 

Angeal settled with knocking instead. But it wasn’t to intrude, nor was it to open the door. The words took some time to form but not long enough for the recipient of his vocables to answer. “I-...bought some clothes for both you and Genesis. I’ll leave them by the door; along with some towels. Feel free to use anything, and if you need something, just let me know.”

The only reason he tarried by the still closed aperture was the silence that kept stretching onwards. 

Maybe there were more words he had to utter, different words… Maybe their worlds were simply miles apart; maybe the gap betwixt was too yawning of a chasm to bridge, too wide.

There was the telltale click of a lock; the knob turned, so did the aperture on its hinges but only slightly. Light poured through the gap of the ajar door, a band of brightness in the darkness of the room. 

It was enough. 

Angeal didn’t know what to do with himself; what to do with the comparisons his mind drew but to crush them with an iron fist. Laying a calloused hand against the wooden planks, the former General gave them a miniscule nudge, giving the silver-haired individual time to change his mind. When no resistance or protest was forthcoming, the Banoran opened the door all the way, content to just stand beyond the threshold.

What met his eyes was abruptly unexpected.

The over mirror light threw the pale features in the looking glass into sharp relief. The blades of the scissor threw it back when those long digits raised them to half-shorn silvery tresses. 

_ Snip. _

Sapphire irises followed the starspun locks as they descended to the pool that had formed on the tiles.

Angeal firmly determined that he had no say in the matter. As it was, even as he watched more strands join the rest, the former General tried to understand what had brought this on. He had a vague idea, more than a vague idea to be honest, but he didn’t want to assume. At the same time, it wasn’t an attempt to dissuade the individual in front of him from what he was doing that, as he leaned against the doorframe, he uttered somewhat quietly, tentatively.

“You don’t have to do it.” An infinitesimal pause. “You don’t have to do it for him.”

The snipping sound stopped. The usually homey quiet of their empty chalet was now something that weighed him down. It stretched onwards, gnawing at his insides, and even then, the seam of his lips remained adamantly closed. There was a clatter, metal against porcelain, and finally at length:

“I’m not doing it for him.” The faint screech of an unoiled hinge. Another _snip_ followed by more silence. 

Heavy, it was heavy.

“I’m doing it for myself.” 

The sluice of silence in the space between them was potent, charged with something unknown. Angeal didn’t have to wait for long to discern its essence.

“I’m not Sephiroth. I don’t want to be him. I never wanted to be him.” The metal blades yawned, and soon, the last of the locks met the same fate as the rest of the silvery mane. “He was the standard Professor Hojo set for all of us...experiments. That’s all we’ve been, and all I always will be.” The visage in the mirror was impassive. It was eerie, all of it: the vacant stare of those emerald eyes, the facial features that were familiar and yet belonged to a stranger. “Experiment 124.” 

The faint trace of the tattoo was still there, despite Ms. Crescent’s attempts at effacing it.

There was no right or wrong way to respond to what Angeal had just heard. More so, there was nothing he could offer by way of suggestion or merely expression of his thoughts. The grey-haired ex-First acknowledged at the same time that his surprise at the lookalike’s acceptance of his origins was misplaced. The truth of the copies’ conception was likely made clear for them since their very beginnings...unlike theirs which had been swathed in lies, schemes, and-...

-The sharp rap against the main entrance of the cottage jarred him out of his thoughts. The guessing game as to the identity of the person who had knocked was another vein of rumination weighing down his addled brain. Opening the door on autopilot and seeing Zack and Aerith there, the former’s mentor allowed them both in, observing mutedly as the brunette handed something to the man he’d been  _ conversing _ with. His protege informed him that they’d be staying at the inn, to which the grey-haired ex-SOLDIER only nodded; and again, to acknowledge the couple’s goodbyes. 

Distantly, he was grateful that his need for space had been somehow understood. The olfactory knowledge of something chemical reached him; and still not breaking his fast, Angeal came to stand where he had been before. Even as his sapphire irises followed the movements of those long fingers as they smeared silverspun tresses with stygian ink, the Banoran kept silent. He didn’t know if it was a privilege, to be granted the chance to see this transformation take place...didn’t know what to think because it was a ghost of something bygone brought to life, not in its entirety but still enough to muddle his thoughts. 

A faucet was turned with a squeak. It took several infinitesimal moments for aqua to pour over tainted hands, the wind-chafed epidermis contrasting vividly with the noir that was slowly being washed away. Black water pooled in the basin, spiraling murkier with each passing second before gurgling down the drain.

The unhurried acoustic of a key turning in the lock heralded his mother’s return, but Angeal wasn’t there; his eyes were still following the aquatic swirl which wasn’t there anymore, a crystallinity that had been tainted stygian and not  _ crimson _ .

With memories of a war unfolding in front of his eyes and a war raging inside his head, between his head and heart, the former General realized that he didn’t have the heart to tell him…to tell him the truth: that it took more than having midnight-colored hair and-... 

“Ex.” A teal gaze was observing him through the looking glass, and Angeal absentmindedly noted the lack of those vertical, slit pupils. “Call me Ex.”

…-teal irises, and a different name to sever his ties with the green-gazed, silver-haired man whom he was created after. As much as the Banoran acknowledged his efforts and knew them to be all the younger man could do, it wouldn’t be enough to staunch the memories his mere presence caused in those who had known his predecessor. 

No. 

And Angeal couldn't tell him, for many reasons, one of which was the fact that he had decided to support Ex, and he would.

Next to him, someone gasped. “ _ Sephiroth! _ ”


End file.
